Austrian Economics Forum: Len Budney -

Seems like begging the question, doesn't it? Who says it's necessary? Indeed, you make a good counter-argument in your next statement. Even with government there are criminals. What makes you so certain that we're better off with government? Presumably, because there would be much more crime without government--but what proves this? You've yourself conceded that government doesn't suffice to eliminate crime.

--Len.

Matt,

Welcome to the forum!

Two small stylistic points. First, you say, "in my paper I demonstrate..." In a mathematical proof, it's literally true that one "demonstrates." In any other field, it comes across a tad heavy-handed--it's probably better to say, "in my paper I argue..." Second, "teleological" in your argument is a synonym of "purposeful." Personally, I suggest that the fancy terms be minimized in favor of plain-old English whenever possible. Unless, of course, your teacher gets off on verbosity and you're doing it to secure an A.

Concerning your argument, I see some major wiggle-room for the praxeologists. Have you ever started your car and then begun daydreaming, only to realize suddenly that you drove not to the corner store, but to your grandmother's house? I have. This suggests the idea that "reflexive, unconscious" action can be arbitrarily complex. It needn't be a simple knee-jerk; a properly trained pilot can "reflexively" take off or land an airplane. Over-the-road truckers report this phenomenon often.

This insight can be formalized by regarding actions as atomic units of unspecified complexity. For example, one "decides" to eat an apple, but one doesn't "decide" where to bite first, or how many times to chew (at least, one doesn't usually). Similarly, one "decides" to drive to the store, but one doesn't necessarily "decide" to avoid obstacles, stop at red lights, obey they speed limits, etc. Those are reflexive behaviors we develop, via training, to enable ourselves to carry out our real intention: getting to the store.

Notice that this can be harmonized with your alternate perspective. If you buy my suggestion above, it can be argued that Mises and Wittgenstein are describing the same phenomenon at different granularities. At a high level, a person decides to storm the enemy trench. At a lower level, trained reactions enable him to leap over bomb craters, dodge hand grenades, aim and fire his weapon, etc. Mises might say that those individual components of the action are "unconscious, reflexive" behaviors, and the soldier would probably agree that, in some sense, they are. Mises concludes that "storm the trench" is an action, while "jump over the crater" is not--instead, it's an incidental component of "storm the trench." Wittgenstein relatively ignores the end in view--storming the trench--and attempts to characterize the soldier's individual steps.

A similar criticism of praxeology has been raised, that a person buying an apple didn't really prefer this particular apple. Some praxeologists attempt to argue that the buyer did indeed prefer this particular apple. I believe it was Rothbard who pointed out that which apple one takes is simply not part of the action. The action is "take an apple at random," not "take this particular apple." The choice of apple matters only if the buyer inspected several apples and selected one particular one--but even then, the real action was, "take any apple that's red on at least X% of its surface." The critique is answered by clarifying the definition of action.

--Len.

If you conclude that the passenger must divert the train to kill the lone hiker, then you've reinvented the "greater good." Once you have a "greater good" in your pocket, you can justify pretty much any act of coercion you please. I had a hunch that's where you were heading.

Once again, though, the dilemma as you posed it didn't include enough information. If you are contractually bound not to touch the controls of a runaway train, for example, then the heirs of the lone hiker would have a basis for suing you: your contract violation resulted in a death. Similarly, if the lone hiker were in fact the owner of the railroad, and the five hikers were trespassers, killing the former is likely actionable. Conversely, if you are a trained trolley driver, and contractually obligated to take control in an emergency, you might be liable for deviating from standard trolley-driver protocol (whatever that might be). The problem as posed is open to several "who owns the boat?" questions.

On the other hand, all of those considerations go out the window if it turns out that you acted with intention to murder. As in, "Then I realized that the lone hiker was my ex-wife, whom I'd always longed to kill, so I threw that switch and opened that throttle wide!" Proving murder might be difficult under the circumstances, but you are in fact guilty of murder in that case.

If we ignore all such questions, assume that all six hikers are trespassers, omit any contractual obligations to act or refrain from acting, and assume that nobody on the train has any relevant expertise or training, suppose that all relevant safety measures are in place, and we assume no murderous or otherwise criminal intent on your part, then either decision can be justified. At worst we're dealing with a genuine accident. I hold the position that you are still liable for accidental damages, unless indemnified by an implicit or explicit contract, but you aren't guilty of a crime. The details of the incident would determine whether you are indemnified; in general, the trolley company would be liable for trolley accidents, not the passengers.

Whether the trolley company is liable to the slain hiker(s) would then depend on the explicit and implicit relationships between them. Once again, if they were trespassers, no liability would attach to the trolley company.

--Len.

I don't see what happiness has to do with it. In your hypothetical, harm occurs, but existing legislation doesn't address it. In a libertarian minarchy, that scenario is certainly possible. But it's not about "happiness"; it's about a deficiency in the law which, unrectified, results in an injustice. The law must then be fixed to remedy the injustice. Since a libertarian minarchy is composed entirely of Ron Pauls, this is a straightforward matter.

--Len.

Agreed. Among other things, if all six persons are trespassing, then in general they bear the full responsibility for their own deaths. If the one man on the spur is the trolley's owner, and the five are trespassers, that changes things a bit.

What makes these examples a bit tedious for me is that Donny is spending tremendous cerebral horsepower to try and rigorously define a "greater good," all so he can justify shutting down power plants to save us from global warming.

The folly of using hypotheticals like this is that hard cases make bad precedents.

--Len.