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The older I get, the more convinced I am that utilitarianism is the best value system. What do I mean by best? I mean the one that, if used correctly, leads to the happiest society. But would it be used correctly? Or would it be abused? Bryan Caplan has a post suggesting the latter.

Here’s the problem I see with utilitarianism. The world is full of cognitive illusions. One of the most powerful sets of illusions is the left-liberal view that big government can solve many of society’s problems. Just to be clear, I do think that government can solve a few problems (such as pollution and excessive inequality), but only a few. Even though I have the same (utilitarian) value system as left-liberals, my policy preferences differ because my University of Chicago education showed me all the unintended consequences of government intervention. Thus I can use my utilitarian value system without ending up on The Road to Serfdom.

Most left-liberals lack a University of Chicago education. For them, the contemplation of all the societal problems that can be solved with big government is akin to playing with matches. Quite dangerous.

So if that’s the world we live in, what’s the best solution?

1. Stick with utilitarianism, and try to spread the Chicago gospel.

2. Replace utilitarianism with a sort of natural rights libertarianism, which while not actually correct, will lead to better outcomes, even by utilitarian standards. Spread the Ron Paul gospel.

You might notice that this is similar to the age old philosophical question of whether religion is a useful way of making society more ethical, even if based on a myth.

I believe there are good arguments on both sides of this issue, but in the end I opt for utilitarianism. We might be able to temporarily indoctrinate some young people with books by Ayn Rand, but in the long run I think we need pragmatic arguments for a free society, if we are to convince the class of educated intellectuals who play such an important role in policymaking.

I recognize that utilitarianism is playing with fire — I just don’t see any better options.

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This entry was posted on December 09th, 2016 and is filed under Libertarianism, Utilitarianism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.



