Torben comments on Survey Results - Less Wrong

48 Post author: Yvain 12 May 2009 10:09PM

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Comment author: badger 13 May 2009 01:55:09PM 1 point [-]

Echoing RichardKennaway, IMO most of the strong arguments for libertarianism (as a set of policies) are consequentialist ones by economists.

The other issue is how to classify someone if they defend some mix of consequentialism and deontology. For example, Robert Nozick argued for rights as side constraints in an otherwise utilitarian moral theory, and Roderick Long argues for deontology based on consequentialist grounds. I'll raise my hand as someone who could probably truthfully describe myself as either, but settled on consequentialist in part for social reasons.

Comment author: thomblake 13 May 2009 02:37:58PM 1 point [-]

Consequentialism and deontology don't really 'mix' well. Either the consequences ultimately matter, or the rules ultimately matter. So it's either 'consequentialism' that collapses into deontology, or 'deontology' that collapses into consequentialism, or some inconsistent mix, or a distinct theory altogether.

Comment author: Torben 14 May 2009 09:37:51AM 0 points [-]

Why not? If libertarianism (more than other ideologies) reflects statistical truths of human existence, we'd expect to reach the same conclusion from different avenues of argument.