I posted a response to an article and addressed several issues, but the them was the difference between viewing liberty from a deontological viewpoint and viewing it from a consequentialist viewpoint. I also posted a comment that is perhaps more directly pointing to the deontology versus consequentialism view.

Here is the what I posted:
http://www.teapartytribune.com/2011/02/10/act-consequentialism-and-the-tea-party-perspective-of-the-health-care-issue/

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter. I think liberty is a good topic for applying, or at least considering, consequentialism and utilitarianism. I also think there is a lot of information on the topic that I have not yet reviewed.

The article is long, and your response (I suppose you are "John"?) is not short and cannot be read easily without reading the whole article beforehand. Could you restate the issues here?

David Olivier wrote:The article is long, and your response (I suppose you are "John"?) is not short and cannot be read easily without reading the whole article beforehand. Could you restate the issues here?

I'm not John--I was responding to John's article.

Here is one topic from the original link above. One way to view politics is to assert that certain policies can be evaluated as libertarian or antilibertarian and to make these judgements based on the observation of one key trait (or perhaps a few key traits) that renders the policy antilibertarian. I see this as a deontological view in which actions (or political policies) are evaluated against deontological rules. The Tea Party movement in the United States emphasizes individual liberty as a principle, and uses deontological arguments (at least that is the way I see them). Although I can see the value of guiding individual behaviors using deontological rules (e.g., it is wrong to kill) can be useful, I think that such methods become increasingly flawed as the subject matter becomes more complicated. I was trying to make observations that show that we must evaluate the expected consequences of the recent changes to health care laws before we can conclude that it is or is not a violation of liberty.

John made a few arguments in his original article, one of which was that it is un-Constitutional to compel people to buy products from private companies, and another was that people have the liberty to make bad choices (i.e., fail to buy health insurance). Although there is no clause in the U.S. Constitution that says that the government can compel people to buy products (independent of context), I argued that this power might fall under the power to support the general welfare. More of my argument was against the idea that Americans have right to make bad choices (a deontological argument) that enables them to deny health insurance. John seemed unconvinced that we must use a consequentialist approach to evaluating complex government policies.

rehoot wrote:The Tea Party movement in the United States emphasizes individual liberty as a principle, and uses deontological arguments (at least that is the way I see them).

Any principle worthy of the name surely has to contain a verb (eg 'maximise happiness'). 'Individual liberty' implies something extremely different if its verb is 'maximise' compared to if it's 'observe'. If a political philosophy compromises between the two (as I believe the Tea Party does), it can't be said to be adhering to either as a principle.

Thanks rehoot for that account of your response.

I think it interesting to note as Arepo does the contradiction between deontology and political activism. Deontology tells me "do this" or "don't do that". For instance, it says "don't tell lies". That is not at all the same as "minimise the number of lies told in the world". That would be consequentialism.

People tend to start out with high-sounding deontological "principles", such as "respect individual liberty", and transmute these principles into values, and then into a duty to promote and defend those values in society at large. But promoting values is consequentialist. Actually, I don't see how deontological ethics can found any political activism at all. Political activism necessarily means fighting for a third party (the government) to do this and that. But that means fighting for a certain state of the world, that is for a consequence; deontology just says what to do, regardless of consequences.

If the Tea Party were to adhere to a respect of individual liberty as a deontological imperative, it could only say: Our members, as individuals, recognize a personal obligation to respect the individual liberty of others. It might also add: Everyone, including the members of the government, should do the same. But that would be an issue between those members of government and their own sense of duty. It would not be a reason to demand their demise, to demand a change in the laws and so on.

If instead individual liberty is viewed as a value, then it can be something to maximize, even if that means violating the individual liberty of some (taking money from the rich, for instance, to give it to the poor). I don't think that is what the Tea Party stands for.

Well, I think I've said nothing new here, just elaborated on what you two said...

It's an interesting project to take consequentialist arguments to the likes of the tea partiers - what sort of responses have you had in this?

tog wrote:It's an interesting project to take consequentialist arguments to the likes of the tea partiers - what sort of responses have you had in this?

rejection

(I started a longer reply but then reshaped it and made a new post--the title is something about deontology, intuitionism, authoritarianism and consequentialism)