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If only they had a better job, more money, a more understanding spouse, less rebellious children, better healthLIBERTARIANISM AND THE RELATIVITY OF VALUES For most libertarians, the principle of non-interference is not just a matter of the incompetence of government. If it were, libertarianism could be countered by proposals designed to improve the quality of government. But even if such proposals were effective, they would not address the most important libertarian concerns. These concerns imply the absolute impropriety of unnecessary interference, even from the most enlightened government. They stem from basic libertarian values. One precept held by many libertarians is the propriety of selfdetermination, that each person should arrive at his own values and that it is morally objectionable to impose values on others. A second is the Protagoran principle that man is the measure of all things, at least in the realm of values Values are ultimately subjective, matters of taste rather than fact. There is no objective right or wrong. It is just a matter of how we feel. These two precepts are often run together, the subjectivity, or relativity, of values cited as the reason it is wrong to impose values on anyone. Libertarians then argue that government interference must be inappropriate because it represents the imposition of its own values. Libertarians fail to appreciate that these two basic principles, rather than reinforcing each other, are mutually incompatible. That it is wrong to impose one’s values on others is itself a value. If all values are matters of subjective taste rather than objective fact, then the impropriety of imposing values must also be a matter of subjective taste. There cannot be anything objectively wrong with imposing values on anyone. It can only be a matter of how we feel. The view that all values are subjective is unreasonable. Despite this, it has become fashionable, partly in reaction to generations of religious leaders claiming a monopoly on “absolute” moral truth. But religious leaders had earlier claimed a monopoly on “absolute” scientific truth, and their monopoly on moral truth was a fallback position. (The doctrine of papal infallibility when speaking ex cathedra on moral issues became Catholic dogma only in 1870, well after the church had lost the battle over science.) Despite claims of religious authorities to possess ultimate scientific authority and despite the fact that different people and different societies have held conflicting scientific beliefs, we don’t claim that science is relative, just a matter of taste. Scientific theories are true or false. That is the impetus driving scientific progress. Astronomers rejected the Ptolemaic geocentric picture of the solar system and replaced it with a heliocentric model and Kepler’s laws, despite the unintuitive nature of the heliocentric model. (After all, the earth does not appear to be moving.) For Kepler’s laws were simpler. These laws also provided new predictions, beyond the scope of Ptolemaic geometry, simply relating the periods of planetary orbits to their distances from the sun. Kepler’s laws in turn were replaced by Newton’s theory of gravitation, of which Kepler’s laws are a limiting case (in the limit that the ratio of the mass of the sun to that of the planets is infinite). Kepler was close but Newton was more accurate, and Newton explained both terrestrial and celestial motion within the same theory. Newton’s theory of gravitation in turn was replaced by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, of which Newton’s theory is a limiting case (in the limit that the curvature of space is zero). Each of these theories is an improvement, in a well-defined sense, over its predecessor. (Laszlo Tisza elegantly discusses this in Generalized Thermodynamics. In effect, the replacing theory contains new parameters — the speed of light, mass [or the ratio of masses], wavelength [or the change in wavelength over the distance of a wavelength], the number of degrees of freedom — such that for limiting values of those parameters, usually 0 or , the equations of the ? replacing theory reduce to those of the replaced theory.) Were science just a matter of taste, there could be no such thing as scientific progress. We would flit from one theory to another for no objective reason. This conception of science is absurd. Scientists emphatically and justly reject the notion that science reflects taste, rather than fact. We have no problem acknowledging that scientists are justified in insisting on the objectivity of their disciplines, despite the facts that religious authorities have claimed absolute knowledge of scientific truth, that different people and different societies have held competing scientific beliefs, and that individual scientists may have their own subjective axes to grind. Why should values be different? The most common response is that scientific theories, unlike moral beliefs, can be proved. This misunderstands science. Kepler’s laws claim to hold for all planets and all time. Even if all measurements to date confirmed these laws, they could not prove them. It would always be possible that more accurate measurements might show planets to obey different laws, of which Kepler’s are but an approximation. It is also possible that in the future planetary orbits will not follow Kepler’s laws. No conceivable experimental evidence could prove Kepler’s laws. What about disproof? It has been claimed (notably by Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery) that purported scientific laws can be proved false by experiment or observation. Not so. Despite a logical structure that appears to allow for falsification, scientific theories have a deep structure that can deflect potential falsifications. Examples go back centuries. The correspondence at the end of the seventeenth century between Isaac Newton and Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer, shows that Newton was able to use theoretical considerations to correct the very observations Flamsteed had cited to falsify Newtonian theory. When Niels Bohr was developing his quantum model of the hydrogen atom, combining the quantization of momentum and energy with the Rutherford solar system model of the atom, he was confronted by apparent experimental falsifications. He dealt with these by continuing to develop his solar system model. He considered elliptical, rather than circular, orbits, took into account the mass and finite dimensions of electrons, and showed that as the model became a more accurate model of the solar system, it increasingly conformed to experimental results. When Einstein was asked about discrepancies between relativistic predictions of the gravitational deflection of light by the sun and experimental measurements, he replied: “For the expert, this thing is not particularly important, because the main significance of the theory does not lie in the verification of little effects, but rather in the great simplification of the theoretical basis of physics as a whole.” (C. Seelig, Albert Einstein, p. 195.) (The ability of scientific theories to withstand apparent falsification is carefully discussed in the writings of Imre Lakatos — especially in “Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes” — in the context of an attractive account of the nature of scientific theories and scientific progress.) Taking experimental falsification too seriously has led even great scientists in the wrong direction: I might tell you the story I heard from Schrudinger of how, when he first got the ideas for this (Schrödinger) equation, he immediately applied it to the behavior of the electron in the hydrogen atom, and then he got results that did not agree with experiment. The disagreement arose because at that time it was not known that the electron has a spin. That, of course, was a great disappointment to Schrödinger, and it caused him to abandon the work for some months. Then he noticed that if he applied the theory in a more approximate way, not taking into account the refinements required by relativity, to this rough approximation his work was in agreement with observation. He published his first paper with only this rough approximation, and in this Schrödinger’s wave equation was presented to the world. Afterward, of course, when people found out how to take into account correctly the spin of the electron, this discrepancy between the results of applying Schrudinger’s equation and the experiment was completely cleared up. I think there is a moral to this story, that it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment. If Schrödinger had been more confident of his work, he could have produced it some months earlier, and he could have published a more accurate equation. The equation is now known as the Klein-Gordon equation, although it was really discovered by Schrödinger before he discovered his nonrelativistic treatment of the hydrogen atom. (P.A.M. Dirac, “The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature,” Scientific American (208) 1963, p.467.) So scientific theories are not falsifiable by experimental facts. Theories have been rejected and replaced, but it has required a more successful competing theory, and not just recalcitrant experimental results, to discard an accepted theory. This is why a number of historians of science have followed Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in talking about scientific paradigms or worldviews rather than theories, and about anomalies rather than falsifications. Kuhn assimilates paradigm changes to gestalt shifts and likens the acceptance of a new paradigm to a religious conversion. Radical philosophers have taken this theme further and argued that there are no objective standards by which to choose among scientific theories. But few scientists take this seriously. Natural scientists, in particular, regard such analysis as bad comedy. There are rational standards for scientific acceptability. These are subtle and involve considerations of not only experimental evidence but also theoretical simplicity and relation to other accepted scientific theories. (I tried to elucidate these in Predictive Simplicity.) Still, there is no question but that science itself is objective. Yet it remains fashionable to claim moral standards are subjective, just a matter of taste. Perhaps a different tack might be tried to justify the view that value judgments, unlike scientific theories, are subjective. After all, scientific beliefs are functional or dysfunctional. If you build a bridge without taking into account the mechanics governing stresses and strains, it will collapse. If you treat a person for disease on the basis of medieval medicine, he probably will die. But values, too, can be functional or dysfunctional. The cargo cults of South Pacific islanders, dissuading people from sustaining themselves, encouraging them instead to wait for the return of cargo planes laden with all their needs, were dysfunctional. It is arguable that religions teaching that the causes of sufferings and salvation lie outside ourselves are dysfunctional for just the same reason: they dissuade people from assuming responsibility for their lives. The Soviet system, based on state planning, the discouragement of individual enterprise and responsibility, the elimination of meaningful feedback, and the intolerance of substantive criticism, was dysfunctional. The abrogation of individual moral responsibility associated with religious cults, exemplified by Jim Jones in Guyana and David Koresh in Waco, Texas, is dysfunctional. Considerations of this sort are not limited to fringe groups or the social and political systems of other countries, but penetrate deep into the fabric of our own society. We celebrate rock stars. Many of these culture heroes use drugs and sing about them. Naturally, this leads to greater drug use. Mass media target adolescents with visceral pleasures and pervert the development of youth. Advertising routinely degrades women as sex objects, leading society to become more accepting of such stereotypes. The entertainment industry portrays casual sex and violence as normal, helping us overcome inhibitions. These cultural artifacts lie close to home and they are dysfunctional. Our society overwhelmingly acknowledges such dysfunction but is unable to do anything about it. That, too, is dysfunctional. Many believe their happiness depends on their external environment. If only they had a better job, more money, a more understanding spouse, less rebellious children, better health… This neglects our ability — rarely exercised — to develop an internal state of profound happiness that is more than a mere effect of external circumstance. (The importance of one’s internal state of life may extend to physiology. Pathogens live in even healthy bodies. So why do some individuals remain healthy while others get sick? How do we explain the relation between a person’s spiritual health and positive outlook on life and his resistance to disease?) Such an internal state, which can exert a powerful influence on one’s environment, lies at the heart of Buddhist thought and practice. A lesson to be learned from Buddhism, which is less a religion in the Western sense and more a practice aimed at leading a fulfilling life, is that we misplace the fulcrum of our lives, locating it outside, rather than inside, ourselves. The evanescence of externally-based happiness, the brevity of life, and the importance of focus on lasting value are issues central to Buddhism. How long does a lifetime last? If one stops to consider, it is like a single night’s lodging at a wayside inn. Should one forget that fact and seek some measure of worldly fame and profit? Though you may gain them, they will be mere prosperity in a dream, a delight scarcely to be prized. You would do better simply to leave such matters to the karma formed in your previous existences. Once you awaken to the uncertainty and transience of this world, you will find endless examples confronting your eyes and filling your ears. Vanished like clouds or rain, the people of past ages have left nothing but their names. Fading away like dew, drifting far off like smoke, our friends of today too disappear from sight.… The spring blossoms depart with the wind; the maple leaves turn red in the autumn showers. All are proof that no living being can stay for long in this world. (The Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, v. 5.] In opposition to this insight, contemporary “developed” societies encourage an addiction to external fulfillment. For many, even if they achieve their immediate desires, new unfulfilled desires surface, leaving a new hunger in place of the old. The fulfillment of their desires does not change either the nature or the long-term intensity of their hunger. Meaningful and sustainable change for both individuals and society requires that people address their internal lives. In neglecting such a dimension, views deeply embedded in modern society are dysfunctional. Similarly, the belief that if each person works for just his own immediate economic ends, then the invisible hand of the free market will guarantee maximum benefit to society, is patently dysfunctional. For it implies there is no value in long-term planning, integrity, social concern, or democratic responsibility. This is partly responsible for our decline in government, education and values. Value beliefs matter, and matter as deeply as scientific beliefs. Just as false scientific beliefs can be dysfunctional, misguided value beliefs can be dysfunctional. There is no valid reason to believe there is so great a difference between scientific judgments and value judgments that the former are true or false, but the latter are only matters of subjective belief. Still, it is inappropriate to impose values on others, and for just the same reasons that it is inappropriate to impose scientific beliefs. It is not just that autonomy and tolerance are objective moral virtues. Freedom of inquiry, intellectual integrity, and the willingness to tolerate different views are necessary to discover the truth — but are hardly necessary if there is no truth to discover. If values or scientific theories were merely matters of taste, there would be no truth to discover and nothing to be gained from tolerance. So a belief in the subjectivity of either values or science actually impedes the spirit of tolerance. It is worse. The doctrine that all values are subjective is not only false, but dangerous. If there are no objective values, it cannot be a matter of discovering what values are appropriate. It can only be a matter of positing values, arbitrarily selecting certain values and committing yourself to them. It is not reason that counts, but commitment. In fact, this marks a classic line of demarcation, one of the most important in the history of philosophy. There is a powerful tradition that lauds positing values and commitment, independent of reason. This tradition characterizes a broad and, at times, dominant current of European thought, from Rousseau to Nietzsche to Weber to Heidegger. It has influenced disciplines ranging from philosophy to politics, from psychology to literary criticism (deconstructionism). The popularity of such a tradition is understandable. A world of pure reason leaves no room for creativity, for the will, for the heroic. The sterility of a life of pure reason is the basis of Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates. There may be value in this Nietzschean theme: the autonomy presupposed in positing values and in acting on the basis of those values. One does not reason and discover. One chooses. One acts. One is authentic. No wonder this philosophy was so closely associated with the Romantic Movement. Despite its popularity, this tradition has a dark side of terrible potency, which has been associated with the worst atrocities in history. It may seem odd, but the problem with this dark side stems from its value relativism. If there are no objective values, it cannot matter what values are posited, those of Hitler or those of Gandhi. All that matters is the charisma of the value-positor. Perversely, the most charismatic figure of the twentieth century was Hitler. And leading advocates of positing — as opposed to discovering — values, true to their tradition, were enthusiastic supporters of the Third Reich. Even today, relativism underlies the fashionable claim that social scientists, historians, literary critics and others necessarily bring their own biases to their research, biases that make objectivity impossible. At a deeper level, according to this line of reasoning, any observation must be filtered through language, experience and beliefs. All data we process must pass through the filter of our consciousness. So all we can ever have is different interpretations of different perceptions. There can be no independently accessible objective reality against which to measure their accuracy. Because there can be no independently accessible objective reality, there can be no objective legitimacy. We can never say one view or theory is better, a more accurate representation of reality, than any other. As a result, we cannot argue against those who claim slavery was a beneficial institution or those who deny the holocaust. For these are just different interpretations of different perceptions. The intellectual poverty of such an approach can be highlighted by extending it to the natural sciences. Natural scientists are humans. They, too, filter everything through their language, experience and beliefs. They have their own biases, which — presumably — distort their research, just as biases distort the research of social scientists, historians, etc. So consider the flat earth hypothesis. There is a Flat Earth Society whose members either ignore or explain away the evidence that our planet is spherical. The same arguments used to claim that a historian’s version of an event is just his interpretation of his perception can be applied equally to the Flat Earth Society. Only their interpretation of their perception — including their perception of the scientific evidence — is that the earth is flat. Despite these arguments, we refuse to take their “science” seriously, even though they have no ulterior motives — it is just that there is so much physical evidence against their claims. Yet even where there is overwhelming sociological or historical evidence, many still treat crackpot — and often racist and neofascist — sociological and historical claims as just different interpretations of different perceptions, to be automatically accorded their own legitimacy. (Even in science, ulterior religious agendas have led some to insist that Creationism has the same status as evolution theories.) To the extent that libertarianism is based on the relativity of values, its foundation is dangerously flawed. It has no ability to distinguish between tolerating potentially valuable new insights and tolerating anything, even intolerance. This provides no sustenance to either tolerance or other traditional values. |
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