Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

One’s preferred moral theory differs according to one’s temperament; we have a sort of temperamental relativism. For example, the NT Rational morality is utilitarianism; the NF Idealist morality may be called “integrity”; the SJ Guardian morality is any deontology; and the SP Artisan morality is based on one’s creative or destructive output.

The NF and SJ moral theories are individual in nature; that is, they assign rewards or punishments based on the person whose behavior is evaluated. That is, these theories act on society for the sake of the individual. NT and SP moral theories, on the contrary, are social in nature; that is, they specify how society can best promote good behavior. That is, these theories act on individuals for the sake of society.

Thus, Mises, as an NT, does not prescribe behavior to individuals; rather, he would structure society in such and such a way in order to safeguard and promote the “smooth functioning” of social cooperation and the market economy: “Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order. This power is vested in the state or government. … The state is essentially an institution for the preservation of peaceful interhuman relations. However, for the preservation of peace it must be prepared to crush the onslaughts of peace-breakers.” (Human Action, 149) Punishments should be as light as possible, provided they deter enough crime: “The age of capitalism has abolished all vestiges of slavery and serfdom. It has put an end to cruel punishments and has reduced the penalty for crimes committed to the minimum indispensable for discouraging offenders. It has done away with torture and other objectionable methods of dealing with suspects and lawbreakers.” (The Anticapitalistic Mentality, 72) All in all, I think Mises would applaud the discipline of law and economics.

In particular, Mises might argue that the law promulgated by the legislature must mirror or reflect the praxeological law. That is, the government should prevent that conduct which praxeology says is unsuitable for the attainment of the greatest good for the greatest number. The state should secure the conditions under which human action, as distributed throughout the economy, is as successful as possible or, equivalently, human labor and effort are as productive as possible. But not more than that: “In the market economy, the laissez-faire type of social organization, there is a sphere within which the individual is free to choose between various modes of acting without being restrained by the threat of being punished. If, however, the government does more than protect people against violent or fraudulent aggression on the part of antisocial individuals, it reduces the sphere of the individual’s freedom to act beyond the degree to which it is restricted by praxeological law. Thus we may define freedom as that state of affairs in which the individual’s discretion to choose is not constrained by governmental violence beyond the margin within which the praxeological law restricts it anyway.” (Human Action, 281)

Now to an NT all people to whom utility is imparted are interchangeable. Crudely speaking, it doesn’t matter if Jack get n utils and Jill gets m utils or vice versa. And SJs, too, are no respecters of persons: no matter who you are or how high your position is, the law applies to you with the same seriousness as to the humblest of your fellows. With respect to punishment, NT want to instill fear into the hearts of potential lawbreakers, and their social cousins SPs will elect to condemn those who would not be deterred. An SP would be quick to condemn with violence (the opposite of reformation) those who destroy yet also quick to praise lavishly those who are creative.

Again, punishment-wise, an NF will want to rehabilitate the offenders or make people good, and their individual cousins SJs pick up those who resist and inflict on them whatever punishment they deserve. Thus, an NF would look at the person and judge him as leading a true or false life. He would direct society to inflict punishment (in the form of temptation) for the purpose of reforming (and so for the sake of) the criminal. And an SJ would be concerned with the social hierarchy and the contemptuous attempts of evil-doers to claim more than what is properly due to them. Any slight by the low in rank of the more righteous and therefore higher in rank is to be punished, so that the correct order of the universe is fully restored and respected from then on. Anyone who dares to challenge what is right, anyone who rebels against the forces of good, is to be thrust down where he belongs with maximum severity. Or at least, that’s the Guardian way.

The SJ theory of punishment is backward-looking, the NF theory is forward-looking, the SP theory is present-looking, and the NT theory is “timeless,” considering society as a process and looking at it as a whole.