Arguing about politics
1 Sep 2022
Disagreements are the bread and butter of politics. An old joke about economists says that if you put 10 economists in a room, you will get 11 opinions. The same seems to be true about politicians as well. Politicians have different views about the role of the state in our lives and these views often appear polar opposites at a fundamental level. Are these views so different, though? Are these disagreements in kind, or simply disagreements in degree? Are these opposing views different in essence, or are they different sides of the same coin?
We tend to classify political views on a onedimensional spectrum. One side is labelled as the left, and it includes socially liberal and economically interventionist policies. The other side is labelled as the right, which captures economically liberal and socially interventionist policies. If more granularity is needed, further dimensions may be added. The Nolan Chart1 divides the political spectrum along two axes, personal and economic freedom. Political policies are then placed in this chart based on whether they result in more or less personal and economic freedom.
This way of classifying political positions is a reflection of how political decision-making is popularly viewed. Modern policy-making is a consequentialist and utilitarian exercise: a good policy is one that improves welfare. As such, we divide political views according to their consequences. The view that advocates for higher taxes or more welfare support is placed on one end of the spectrum, while the view that promotes less corporate regulation or tighter immigration control is placed on another. However, both views aim to improve welfare of society - they just disagree how this might be achieved. Differences between points on the spectrum are like different ice cream flavours: a chocolate ice cream is very different to a pistachio ice cream - but it is still ice cream. What if I don’t want ice cream? What if I want, say, a Belgian waffle?
Consequentialism judges actions or policies based on its consequences: if a policy has a good outcome, it is a good policy. If a policy has a bad outcome, it is a bad policy. A consequence of this is that the same policy may be desirable at one point in time, but undesirable at a later time. Utilitarianism, as a form of consequentialism, judges actions according to a utility function. The higher an action’s value as per the utility function, the better the action is. The aim is to find policies that maximise such utility function. Most political parties are consequentialist utilitarians: they are akin to different flavours of the same ice cream; somewhat different, but only superficially.
Deontology, on the other hand, ignores the consequences of actions and looks at the action itself to decide if it’s right or wrong. It is fundamentally different from consequentialism. It is not just another flavour of ice cream: it is a Belgian waffle. As deontology makes no reference to the consequence of actions, it is universal and time-invariant in nature.
For example, a deontologist might judge a policy on whether it respects certain individual rights. If it doesn’t, the policy is unjust and shouldn’t be pursued, no matter how beneficial it might be for an individual or society. If the policy respects or restores individual rights then it may be pursued, regardless of the outcomes of doing so. If it happens to lead to a better society, that’s great. If it leads to a society where everyone is worse off from a welfare perspective, that’s an unfortunate side effect - but it has no bearing on the decision of whether the policy should be pursued or not. Far from being deontologist, current politics revolve around either
1. improving welfare of society, or
2. improving welfare of a group of society.
As such, modern politics is a utilitarian exercise where the goal is to find welfare-maximising policies. Disagreement only arises from (a) how to choose the utility function and (b) how to achieve such welfare improvement, according to the chosen utility function. It is therefore a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Of the two sources of disagreement, the second one is the most contentious one.
Even when a policy that protects an individual right is defended, it is usually done so by appealing to its positive effects (ie by appealing to 1. or 2. above) rather than with right-based arguments. In other words, in the current political debate individual rights and freedom are means to an end - improved welfare - rather than ends in themselves. For deontologists, the precise opposite is true: individual rights and freedom are examined and studied as ends in themselves, and if they have merits when viewed as such then policies promoting these are to be pursued.
Utilitarianism overwhelmingly dominates politics, whereas deontological arguments are conspicuous by their absence.
To make matters worse, certain people believe they are making a deontological, right-based argument when in reality their argument is utilitarian at its core. This is often the case even for some human rights advocates: they defend certain policies by appealing to individual rights when, under close inspection, their defence is just utilitarianism in disguise.
Some others do believe that some rights are fundamental to human beings, but they then abandon these rights on certain cases on utilitarian grounds. When asked about this inconsistency of appealing to a right on some cases but denying it on others, they often reply that the right is actually subordinate to other utilitarian considerations - which means that it’s no right at all2.
When asked about the inconsistency of appealing to the right to do with one’s body as they please in the first case but denying this right in the second case, "How will this political party help me?" "How will the policies this politician promotes benefit my community, my town, my country?" These are common questions people ask themselves when deciding which political candidate deserves their vote. Voters think in utilitarian terms and they expect utilitarian answers. People find the idea of promoting a policy with demonstratively harmful consequences for society, let alone themselves as individuals, alien at best and laughable at worst, even if not pursuing the policy would infringe individual rights. But it shouldn’t be. Deontological arguments for and against public policy should be part of political discussion. Politicians and voters might still settle for consequentialist, utilitarian arguments for a policy, but they should at least be able to justify why deontological considerations for or against the policy were dismissed.
Notes
1 D. Nolan, “Classifying and Analyzing Politico-Economic Systems” (The Individualist, 1971).
2 And these prima facie rights are not rights, strictly speaking.