How does Entangled Political Economy help us to understand political entrepreneurship?

 

After I finished reading Richard E. Wagner’s book, Politics as a Peculiar Business, the thought crossed my mind that I should encourage people to read what I was about to write about it before reading the other essays I have recently written about political entrepreneurship. The titles of the other essays are:

Can the concept of political entrepreneurship help us to understand authoritarianism?

What role does political entrepreneurship play in institutional change?

Should we expect our political leaders to be great and good?

I have been writing essays about political entrepreneurship to improve my understanding of the topic. In the process I have felt like that a blind man trying to build up a picture of an elephant in his mind by approaching it from different angles. After I finish writing this essay, I might be able to turn my mind to considering how best to present my understanding of the concept and its relevance to liberty and human flourishing.

Entangled Political Economy

The full title of Richard E. Wagner’s book is Politics as a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy (Edward Elgar, 2016).  

Wagner refers to the ancient Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant in suggesting that political economy is best approached from the standpoint of plausible reasoning rather than demonstrative reasoning.

Plausible reasoning starts from the standpoint that the object of inquiry cannot be known in full detail to the inquirer.

By contrast, demonstrative reasoning begins with a set of assumptions about human behavior, and then analyses the implications of those assumptions. The conventional welfare economics approach to the role of government - with its assumption that government acts like an omniscient and benevolent dictator attempting to maximize the well-being of citizens by correcting externalities and providing public goods – provides a relevant example of demonstrative reasoning.

The analytical framework of Entangled Political Economy recognises that both “polity and economy are areas of practical action that operate in similar but not identical fashion.”

The author suggests that human nature has “a bi-polarity about it that generates both polity and economy.” The political side of human nature entails recognition that we are social creatures who live in close proximity and engage in cooperation and conflict. The economic side entails recognition that we need “to make a livelihood” and desire “to be self-directed as against being conscripts in someone’s army”.

I am not persuaded that “bi-polarity” is the best way to capture the idea that humans are “political animals” whose interactions with other members of the species are not always motivated by personal benefit. It seems to me that human nature inclines individuals to seek to flourish by making wise and well-informed choices about all aspects of their lives that they are able to influence, including their interactions with others. 

However, as public choice theorists have noted, most people lack sufficient motivation to allocate the time and effort required to make well-informed choices in relation to national politics because their individual choices are unlikely to have much impact on national outcomes. Wagner’s view of entangled political economy draws on that public choice literature.

I certainly agree that political economy should focus on the full range of interactions among persons and entities within society. As Wagner notes, that perspective has important implications for social change:

“The framework of entangled political economy accommodates recognition that societies change only through individual action inside those societies, and with those actions spreading within the society according to the receptivity of other members of that society to those changes.”

Although Entangled Political Economy is based on a description of different kinds of interactions among individuals in the real world, it represents a departure from the way many economists have previously thought about the interaction between politics and economics. Wagner reminds readers that it has been customary to “envision a polity as a kind of lord of the manor who overseas what is denoted as economy.” He points out that discussion is usually in terms of “additive political economy” in which polity and economy are denoted as independent entities and polity intervenes in economy to correct “market failure”. He argues:

“The Progressivist vision of political presence and dominance throughout society is abetted by the vision of additive political economy because that vision provides rationalization for unlimited political action.”

Political entrepreneurship

 Wagner argues that it makes sense to view politics as a peculiar form of business because it has many characteristics in common with business. Both are sources of livelihood for people, entail competition, and are supported by administrative educational organisations. Both must attract investors to provide capital. Both involve entrepreneurship.

The main difference between political entrepreneurship and market entrepreneurship arises because of the difference between dyadic and triadic relationships. Dyadic relationships involve two people; triadic relationships involve three. Wagner observes that market relationships can be reduced mostly to a set of dyadic relationships where both parties benefit. Political relationships typically require a set of triadic relationships where two people exchange mutual support and a third is forced to provide financial support.

Wagner explains:

“Within the triadic relationships associated with electoral competition … a political entrepreneur can construct a supporting coalition by crafting a transactional structure that entails gainers and losers, while at the same time generating a supporting ideological cover that softens and conceals the redistributive character of the transaction.”

The difference between market and political competition has implications for the qualities required for successful entrepreneurship in different contexts. Wagner suggests that while puffery is an understandable part of market competition, “electoral competition is mostly about puffery”. Systemic lying is a feature of political competition. Sentiment tends to play a larger role, relative to reason, in political competition because of the absence of a direct connection between the individual elector’s choice and the outcome obtained. Voting is like ordering a meal at a restaurant and being served the same meal as everyone else, irrespective of what you ordered. Wagner notes Vilfredo Pareto’s view that ideological articulation can induce people to support measures that they might have opposed in a market setting. Voters generally embrace policies that enable them to feel good about themselves.

Wagner argues that little substantive work is accomplished through elections and political campaigns. The substantive work of policy choice takes place “outside electoral politics and entails the interactive elements necessary for constructing and maintaining deals.” He suggests a parliamentary assembly can be viewed as an “investment bank” because it is “a hub for making deals” involving selection and funding of projects. In that context:

“Entrepreneurs are thus competing among themselves to seize the future. Successful entrepreneurship offers both fame and fortune.”

In reading Wagner’s account of political entrepreneurship, it occurred to me that the significance of electoral competition in the United States is greater than he portrays it to be. That perception is based partly on my (somewhat cursory) observation of the presidential election in 2024 and the performance of the Trump administration in its first 100 days in office.

The 2024 U.S. election and its aftermath may be atypical, but similar political entrepreneurship has been on display in some European elections.  As discussed in a previous essay, political entrepreneurs tend to focus on niches in the marketplace of ideas. They seek to attract support from people who are discontented with current economic and social outcomes by emphasizing alleged problem-solving capacities of their ideas. Their success in attracting a loyal support base of customers who are willing to help them to sell their narrative depends to a large extent on the strength of competition from politicians selling different narratives, and on the extent of resistance by journalists and members of the public who consider their narratives to be incorrect, or that their policy proposals are unworkable, unconstitutional, unethical, or otherwise unhelpful.

I also observed that the discussion of entangled political economy in Politics as a Peculiar Business seemed more relevant to countries with parliamentary systems of government than to those with presidential systems, where much business seems to be done via “executive orders”. However, that is not intended as criticism. It may reflect the greater role of “executive orders” in the U.S. in the years since the book was published.

How can entanglement be contained?

One of Wagner’s aims in writing the book was “to explain how an entangled political economy can generate its own momentum to transform a constitution of liberty into a constitution of control”. He refers to the credit market as providing an example of how this occurs. Private ordering of credit markets is vulnerable to entanglement for two reasons. On the demand side are market participants who are dissatisfied with how they fare in privately ordered credit markets. On the supply side are “political figures who want to catapult themselves from background to foreground in the cosmic drama that is human society”.

Another example relates to the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which provides for just compensation when the government takes private property for public use. However, Wagner observes that “history over the past century or so has increasingly run in the direction of governments taking property for what are private uses and paying only partial or token compensation”. A clear constitutional provision is not necessarily “sufficiently strong to deter rapacious interest groups from using government as an instrument of predation”.

Wagner refers to Vincent Ostrom’s observation that government involves a Faustian bargain: “instruments of evil – power over other people – are to be employed because of the good they might do, recognizing that evil might also result.” 

How can we minimize the potential for evil to result? Wagner suggests that the alternatives are “parchment” and “guns”.

“Parchment” refers to constitutional rules. Constitutional rules may remain effective if supported by public morality – sufficient numbers of people being willing to refrain from use of the powers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of others. This approach relies on education and related processes to cultivate virtue and wisdom.

“Guns” refers to an approach that looks primarily to “a kind of opposition of interests to limit government predation”. Wagner suggests that “guns” may complement “parchment”. He writes:

“The basic principle behind this approach is for governmental action to require some concurrence among different participants with opposed interests.”

Wagner suggests that when it becomes habitual for people to use politics in a predatory manner that may “promote alternative beliefs as to what comprises just conduct”. He concludes that “parchment and guns … would seem to be nonseparable ingredients of constitutional order in the final analysis.”

Wagner tells us that his reference to guns is metaphorical, so what he has in mind may not necessarily be violent. For example, those who believe themselves to be victims of predation have an incentive to form associations to protect their interests in the courts and may be able to exert countervailing power the political arena.

While I believe that entangled political economy offers important insights about interactions between participants in politics and markets, I would have liked the author to explore more fully the macroeconomic consequences of increasing entanglement. Perhaps that would have led to a more optimistic conclusion.

In Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing I suggested that although most liberal democracies are heading for major economic crises in the years ahead there are reasons to be optimistic “that governments will eventually introduce institutional reforms to enable the drivers of progress to restore growth of opportunities.” (See Chapter 6, particularly p. 120)

My optimism presupposes the emergence of political entrepreneurs who understand the nature of the problems that need to be addressed and can marshal the political support required to carry out appropriate institutional reforms to correct those problems.

Conclusions

The discussion of entangled political economy in Richard Wagner’s book, Politics as a Peculiar Business, is helpful to an understanding of the context in which political entrepreneurship occurs in the liberal democracies.

Entangled political economy focuses on the full range of interactions among persons and entities within society. It emphasizes that societal change occurs only through individual actions. Entangled political economy represents a departure from the view of those economists (and governments) who have envisioned a polity as a kind of lord of the manor who overseas an economy.  

Wagner argues that politics has many characteristics in common with private business, but it is characterized by triadic relationships rather than dyadic relationships. Market relationships can be reduced mainly to sets of relationships between two people, both of whom benefit. Politics typically requires sets of relationships where two people exchange mutual support and a third is forced to provide financial support.

The author suggests that the main work of political entrepreneurs – interactions to construct deals - takes place outside electoral politics. He suggests that parliaments can be viewed as kinds of investment banks because they are hubs for making deals involving selection and funding of projects.

In my view the significance of electoral politics and deal-making by executive arms of governments is greater than Wagner portrays it to be. However, my view has been strongly influenced by events since 2016, when his book was published.

Wagner argues that entangled political economy generates its own momentum to transform a constitution of liberty into a constitution of control. He is pessimistic about the prospect for entanglement to be contained via constitutional rules and moral conduct. He suggests that habitual use of politics in a predatory manner promotes an alternative view of what constitutes just conduct.

In my view, Wagner might have come to a more optimistic conclusion if he had more fully explored the macro-economic consequences of increasing use of the powers of the state for predatory purposes. Economic crises may eventually bring about appropriate institutional reforms if political entrepreneurs emerge who can marshal the political support required to implement them.  

What is the problem with aggressive realism in international relations?

 

Before I outline John Mearsheimer’s theory of aggressive realism, I will present my version of the classical liberal view of international relations.

A classical liberal view

As the epigraph might suggest, I subscribe to a view of international relations that has been around, in one form or another, at least since the time of the Ancient Greeks. The poet Hesiod, one of the founders of Greek epic poetry, advised his brother, Perses, to avoid thinking of obtaining wealth by engaging in predatory violence, including war. He urged Perses to respect the rights of other people, and to seek prosperity by working and engaging in peaceful competition with economic rivals.

As I see it, it is natural for individuals to seek to flourish by engaging in peaceful pursuits in mutually beneficial collaboration with others. However, it is an unfortunate fact of life that some people - individuals, groups, and nations - seek to obtain wealth by predation. People can flourish by engaging in peaceful pursuits only if they are able to protect themselves from predation.

It is not difficult to identify predatory nations which have a recent track record of seeking to invade the territory of other jurisdictions or threatening acts of violence against them. 

People in neighboring jurisdictions have an obvious incentive to protect themselves, and each other, from such predatory behavior. Nations that do not have predatory intent toward other jurisdictions have an incentive to band together to form communities of peaceful nations. The purpose of these multinational communities is to establish and enforce international rules that outlaw invasion and other violent activities that predatory nations undertake.

The multilateral communities of peaceful nations (MCPN) that I have in mind would have more in common with some existing security treaties than with the United Nations. I envisage that the MCPN would exist solely for mutual protection and would avoid attempting to pursue other objectives such as protecting individual rights, promoting economic development, or pursuing environmental objectives.  Multilateral cooperation might be desirable to pursue some of those other objectives, but the MCPN are more likely to be effective in pursuing the objective of discouraging predation if they focus specifically on that objective.

The approach proposed above should enable liberal democracies to avoid becoming involved in pathetic attempts to impose the institutions of liberal democracy on people with different belief systems, values, and ideals. However, it would support provision of military aid to Ukraine - to support its defense against Russian aggression, to Israel - to support its defense against terrorism sponsored by Iran, and to Taiwan - to counter Chinese threats of invasion.

I have previously outlined some similar ideas in myreview of Christopher Coyne’s book, In Search of Monsters to Destroy.

The approach proposed here has much in common with the classical liberal approach to international relations theory described by Edwin van de Haar in a monograph entitled, Human Nature and World Affairs, published by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs in 2023.

The theory of aggressive realism

When a friend suggested a few weeks ago that I should watch Lex Fridman’s interview of John Mearsheimer, my initial reaction was that I had already knew enough about Mearsheimer’s views because someone had referred them to me in 2022, soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I suggested that my friend should take a look at Niall Ferguson’s refutation of Mearsheimer. Surprisingly, he took up my suggestion, so I felt obliged to watch the Mearsheimer interview.

After watching the interview, my initial reaction was that I had heard enough from John Mearsheimer to last me for at least the rest of 2025. However, I had to acknowledge (to myself) that Mearsheimer’s approach to the issues was scholarly, So I decided that it might be worth trying to find out more about the basis for his views. That is how I came to read, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2014 edition).

Mearsheimer argues that the overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, the world is condemned to “perpetual great power competition”.

His theory of aggressive realism is based on 5 bedrock assumptions:

1. The international system is anarchic, in the sense that the system comprises independent states that have no central authority above them. 
2. Great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability. 
3. No state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, regarding the use of offensive military capability.
4. Survival is the primary goal of great powers – they are unlikely to be able to pursue other goals if they are conquered.
5. Great powers are rational actors – they think strategically about how to survive in their external environment.

Mearsheimer argues that these assumptions are realistic and that, together, they “create powerful incentives for great powers to think and act offensively with regard to each other”.  He suggests that hegemony is the best way for any state to guarantee its own survival.

The author views aggressive realism as a prescriptive theory as well as a descriptive theory. If great powers want to survive, they should behave like aggressive realists.

The extent to which states fear each other determines the severity of their security competition as well as the probability that they will fight a war. An “unbalanced multipolarity” is the power configuration that generates the most fear because it contains a potential hegemon which stands a good chance of dominating the other great powers in its region and the world.

Much of Mearsheimer’s book is devoted to marshalling historical evidence in support of his theory, but the final chapter focuses on a specific application of his theory. In that chapter, he seeks to answer the question: Can China rise peacefully?

Mearsheimer does not believe China can rise peacefully. He argues that if China maintains rapid economic growth over the next few decades, it is likely to end up in an intense security competition with the United States and its neighbors. He views China as a potential hegemon and the current international power configuration as an unbalanced multipolarity.

According to Mearsheimer, the optimal policy for the United States to adopt toward China is “containment”, rather than other alternatives including preventive war, pursuing policies aimed at slowing China’s economic growth, or seeking to weaken China by fomenting trouble within its borders. Containment means “keeping Beijing from using its military forces to conquer territory and more generally expand its influence in Asia”. Mearsheimer suggests that the U.S. should form a balancing coalition with as many of China’s neighbors as possible.

Where is the problem?

As I see it, there are two main weaknesses in Mearsheimer’s analysis. The most fundamental problem stems from assumption 3. In order to argue that aggressive realism is the optimal strategy for a state to adopt, I think it would be necessary to argue that there is always a great deal of uncertainty about the intentions of neighboring states, rather than just lack of certainty. Perhaps it is true that no state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, but I think states can usually make well-informed judgements about the intentions of their neighbors. Australia and New Zealand, for example, can be sufficiently certain about their intentions toward each other, to refrain from adopting offensive postures in that relationship. I think the same has generally been true of relations between Canada and the United States over the last century, but the recent rhetoric of the U.S. president might suggest that Canada would be wise to begin to re-assess the probability that the U.S. will continue to respect its territorial integrity.

Those examples illustrate the point I want to make. It is possible to make probabilistic assessments about the intentions of other states from past behavior and the rhetoric of their leaders. Some states obviously have peaceful intentions towards their neighbors whereas other states are currently engaged in predatory activities. In other instances, the probability of predatory behavior over the next decade might lie in the range from 0.1% to 1%; or from 90% to 100%; or in some other range.

The other weakness in Mearsheimer’s analysis seems to me to be an excessive focus on China as the potential hegemon. I agree with his analysis and policy prescription relating to China - as long as “containment” is pursued in a manner that can be presented to the Chinese government as a response to its aggressive policies toward its neighbors, rather than as an attempt to impede China's peaceful interactions with its neighbors.

 It seems to me, however, that communities of peaceful nations should be concerned to discourage all states from predation on their neighbors.  States that profit from predation have no incentive to stop until they assess that the costs of further predation are outweighed by the benefits. States in the neighborhood of Russia, Iran, and North Korea have good reasons to seek to contain the aggressive tendencies of those countries. Given that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea engage in military cooperation with each other, it would be particularly unwise for the U.S. and its allies to be unduly pre-occupied with responding to the rise of China.

Conclusions

John Mearsheimer’s theory of aggressive realism suggests that the over-riding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power. He argues that there are powerful incentives for all great powers to act offensively with regard to each other.

The crucial assumption that Mearsheimer makes is that no state can ever be certain about another state’s intentions, regarding use of offensive military capability. I argue that it is possible for states to make probabilistic assessments about the intentions of other states based on past behavior and the rhetoric of their leaders.

It is not difficult to identify nations that have a recent track record of predatory behavior. Peaceful nations have an obvious incentive to band together to enforce international rules that outlaw invasion and other violent predatory activity.

Mearsheimer’s concerns about challenges that could arise from emergence of a new hegemon have led him to focus on the risks posed by the rise of China. While I agree with much of his analysis regarding the threat posed by China in the years ahead, it would be unwise for peaceful nations to overlook the threats currently posed by others (including Russia, Iran and North Korea) who clearly have predatory intentions toward other jurisdictions in their neighborhoods and are currently engaging in military cooperation in pursuit of their several objectives.

Does your well-being depend on your PCNs?

 

The accompanying graphic suggests that it does. It is from Michael A Bishop’s book, The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being, published in 2015.

What is a PCN? A PCN is a positive causal network, or feedback loop. The general idea behind PCNs is that a person has a high level of well-being when they are experiencing a self-perpetuating cycle of positive emotions, positive attitudes, positive traits, and successful engagement with the world.

Bishop wrote the book to provide positive psychology with a solid foundation based on “a bit of fairly conventional philosophy of science”. He argues that the philosophical literature on well-being (hedonism, informed desire theory, and Aristotelianism) is too fragmented to provide positive psychology with a solid foundation.

The author observes that positive psychology offers practical, science-based advice about well-being. The explosion of scientific research on well-being has revealed homeostatically clustered sets of feelings, emotions, attitudes and behaviors. That provides the basis for positive psychology to be viewed as the study of the structure and dynamics of PCNs.

Bishop demonstrates that much research in positive psychology can be viewed in that light.

Consistency with my view of well-being

In my view, it makes sense to view psychological well-being as being at the opposite end of the spectrum to mental illness. Felicia Hupert and Timothy So viewed it as being on the opposite end of the spectrum to anxiety and depression. Those authors identified ten symptoms of well-being: competence, emotional stability, engagement, meaning, optimism, positive emotion, positive relationships, resilience, self-esteem, and vitality. They examined relationships among those symptoms in a study using data from a representative sample of 43, 000 Europeans. (‘Flourishing Across Europe’, Soc. Ind. Res. 2013.)

The view of psychological well-being adopted by Hupert and So seems to me to be easier to understand than Michale Bishop’s view that it consists of PCNs. Nevertheless, the two views don’t conflict. At one point Bishop actually suggests that it is possible to understand PCNs by contrasting them with negative or vicious causal cycles involving negative thoughts, feelings, attitudes, behaviors and dysfunctions.

Do PCNs constitute “The Good Life”?

As a neo-Aristotelian, the main objection I have to Bishop’s book is its title.

I am not particularly concerned that Bishop’s approach might be at variance with that of psychologists who claim to have an Aristotelian approach to positive psychology. Those people are well-intentioned but the indicators they use seem to be somewhat removed from what Aristotle had in mind when he expressed the view that human flourishing is a virtuous activity of the soul.

I guess that Aristotle would see a strong positive link between virtue and PCNs. After all, he saw virtue as being about not just about doing the right thing but also taking pleasure in it. Of course, Aristotle also acknowledged that people could obtain pleasure (but not eudaimonia) without being virtuous.

That raises the question of whether it is possible for a villain to have a high level of psychological well-being. In my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing I expressed a view implying that villains can’t have high level of psychological well-being:

“It may be possible for a villain to score highly on positive emotion and self-esteem, but I doubt that a villain could obtain a high overall score in a competently administered psychological assessment.”

I based that view on research findings relating to the dark triad.

Bishop presents a different view:

“In a culture in which cruelty is rewarded, a person naturally disposed to cruelty can have success and a high degree of well-being. This is not a consequence to jump for joy about. It’s just a sobering fact about our world that bad people can have well-being.”

Bad people can certainly have the outward signs of success in a culture in which cruelty is rewarded but I suspect that, even in that cultural context, people who take a stand against cruelty may tend to have stronger PCNs. (I could be wrong about that. It is an empirical question.)

In their book, Modernizing Aristotle’s Ethics, Roger Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar suggest that humaneness is constitutive of a psychic state humans desire and cite evidence opposed to the widespread belief that ruthless people tend to get ahead in life, love, and especially business. (For references, please see my essay entitled ‘Is it possible for humans to flourish if they don’t live good lives?’, recently published on The Savvy Street).

Irrespective of whether bad people can have high PCNs, no Aristotelian could accept that they are flourishing. The view that bad people can live “good” lives is also opposed to the folk view of what it means to live a good life. (Please see the essay cited above for references and discussion.)

Conclusions

In his book, The Good Life, Michael Bishop argues that positive psychology should be viewed as the study of the structure and dynamics of positive causal networks (PCNs). PCNs are self-perpetuating cycles of positive emotions, positive attitudes, positive traits, and successful engagement with the world.

The view that psychological well-being is deeply rooted in strong PCNs seems to be consistent with the view that it lies on the opposite end of the spectrum to anxiety and depression.

The title of Bishop’s book is at variance with his view that it is possible for bad people to have strong PCNs. I am not convinced that it is possible for bad people to have high PCNs. Irrespective of whether that is so, however, people of bad character certainly do not live “the good life”.

Why has "Norms of Liberty" made a lasting impression on me?

 

Norms of Liberty is a work of political philosophy written by Douglas B Rasmussen and Douglas J Den Uyl, and published in 2005.

The blurb on Amazon provides a good description of what the book is about:

“How can we establish a political/legal order that in principle does not require the human flourishing of any person or group to be given structured preference over that of any other? Addressing this question as the central problem of political philosophy, Norms of Liberty offers a new conceptual foundation for political liberalism that takes protecting liberty, understood in terms of individual negative rights, as the primary aim of the political/legal order.” 

Rasmussen and Den Uyl argue for construing individual rights as metanormative principles. These principles establish the political/ legal conditions under which full moral conduct can take place.

The authors distinguish metanormative principles from normative principles that provide guidance for moral conduct within the ambit of normative ethics. This crucial distinction allows them to develop liberalism as a metanormative theory rather than as a guide for moral conduct.

The authors show that the moral universe can support liberalism without either being minimized or requiring morality to be grounded in sentiment or contracts. Rather, liberalism can be supported, and many of its internal tensions avoided, with an ethical framework of Aristotelian inspiration―one that understands human flourishing to be an objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, social, and self-directed activity.

Readers who are looking for a more expansive synopsis should read Ed Younkins’s essay, ‘Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Trilogy of Freedom and Flourishing’, published on The Savvy Street.

Some explanation of the authors’ use of the term ‘liberalism’ might be helpful at this point. As well as defending classical liberalism and libertarianism, the authors seek to defend other types of political liberalism (as the term is used in the United States) which still subscribe to some of the tenets of classical liberalism e.g. that people should be free to pursue their own conceptions of the good life.   

My purpose here is not to review the book but to explain why the book has made a lasting impression on me. First, I will explain why I thought the book made an important contribution when I first read it in 2007. Then, I will explain why I still think the book provides the most appropriate framework in which to consider the rights of individuals.

My initial impression

Rasmussen and Den Uyl advanced their argument for construing individual rights as metanormative principles in large part as a response to communitarian and conservative critics who claimed that liberalism had undermined its own principles.

I had read some communitarian literature prior to reading Norms of Liberty but I was more concerned about the threat to individual rights posed by people who wanted to make happiness a goal of national economic policy. The people concerned wanted to use survey data on average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that responses to life satisfaction surveys don’t give appropriate weight to everything that is important to people and that using such surveys to pursue a national happiness goal would interfere with individual choice. (I wrote an article about such matters in 2004. It can be found here.)

I read Norms of Liberty at a time when I was ready to move beyond utilitarianism. The welfare economics that I had been imbued with decades earlier seemed to imply that it would be good for governments to adopt aggregate welfare as an over-arching policy goal if only it was possible to measure individual utility in a manner suitable to be aggregated (or averaged) in some way. However, after some economists began to claim that life satisfaction surveys provided a way to do that, the potential conflict with individual liberty could not be ignored. It seemed wrong for liberty to be viewed as just an element in an individual’s utility function. But how could one avoid viewing liberty in that way if the sole goal of individuals is to maximize utility functions?

The answer that Norms of Liberty provided to me was that I needed to step aside from a framework in which all goals of individuals could be summarised neatly in terms of maximizing a nebulous concept referred to as “utility”. I needed to think more broadly in terms of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process. Liberty is integral to individual flourishing because individual flourishing is an inherently self-directed process.

I began blogging soon after reading Norms of Liberty. Some of my initial posts reflect the favourable impression the book had on me soon after I had read it. For example:  What does flourishing mean? , and Is Freedom and necessary condition for human flourishing?

 Later views

Over the years, I have discussed many different things on this blog.  Blogging has been a learning process. I cannot claim that the views I have expressed have always been philosophically coherent.  

Nevertheless, I claim a degree of consistency in advocating for a political/legal order which protects the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensures that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. I also claim consistent optimism about the potential for the vast majority of individuals to flourish – with help from family and friends – if governments protect their natural rights and refrain from interfering with the manner of their flourishing. (I don’t deny that government assistance has helped some people to flourish but I observe that government assistance is often offered in a manner that encourages people to languish.)

Those ideas are also themes of my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, as well as being reflected in many of the essays on this blog.

While re-reading Norms of Liberty a few days ago, I was struck by its relevance to recent political developments in many of the countries often referred to as western liberal democracies. When I first read the book, I had the impression that groups who sought to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others lacked the political power to implement their policies. At that time, the main threat to individual self-direction seemed to come from well-meaning paternalists who wanted to use the coercive powers of the state to make people happy.

More recently, it seems to me that some groups are increasingly seeking to use the coercive powers of the state to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others. I don’t see this tendency as being confined to any one religious or political group, although some are more prone than others to advocate restrictions on liberty.

One development that seems to me to be of particular concern is the increasing prevalence of the idea that freedom of speech should be restricted to protect people from being offended by what others may say about their ethnicity, religious views etc. If the legal system gives people greater incentives to take offence at what others say, it is reasonable to predict an increase in the extent to which people take offence, leading to demands for further restriction of freedom of speech. Threats of violence should be prohibited because they are incompatible with peaceful coexistence. Beyond that, however, restriction of freedom of speech is a slippery slope that is likely to increase, rather than lessen, conflict between different community groups.

Conclusion

My purpose in writing this essay has been to explain why Norms of Liberty, by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, has made a lasting impression on me.

At the time I first read Norms of Liberty, in 2007, I was particularly concerned about threats to liberty posed by the proposals of some utilitarians who want to make happiness a goal of national economic policy and to use survey measures of average life satisfaction to monitor achievement of that goal. I was concerned that average life satisfaction doesn’t adequately account for liberty. That provided the context in which I was ready to step aside from the idea that all the goals of individuals could be summarized in terms of utility maximization. It made more sense to think of individual flourishing as a multidimensional process which is largely self-directed and to think of liberty as the metanormative principle that protects the possibility of individual self-direction.

I still think the best defence of liberty is to view it as the means of protecting the possibility of individual self-direction, and ensuring that the flourishing of any person or group is not given structural preference over any other. While re-reading Norms of Liberty it struck me that since the book was written, groups seeking to have their modes of flourishing given structural preference over others have come to pose an increasing threat to liberty in the western liberal democracies. Peaceful coexistence among different groups is likely to break down if norms of liberty are not adequately defended.

Why should peacefulness be viewed as a characteristic of a good society?

 

In the most popular post on my blog, written in 2009, I asked: What are the characteristics of a good society? I began the post by suggesting that a good society would have good institutions – norms and laws that are good for its members. I noted that in thinking about the characteristics of a good society different people tend to emphasise different things that they consider to be important e.g. egalitarianism, personal freedom, moral values and spirituality. I then suggested that rather than just agreeing to differ, it might be useful to try to identify some characteristics of a good society that nearly everyone would agree to be important. 

The three characteristics I identified were: 

• institutions that enable members to live together in peace; 
• institutions that provide members with opportunities to flourish – to have more of the things that are good for humans to have; 
• and institutions that provide members with a degree of security against potential threats to individual flourishing.

No-one has suggested to me that they disagree that good societies should have those three characteristics.

However, I have been wondering recently how I should respond if someone suggested that in some societies a substantial proportion of the population hold attitudes that place a relatively low priority on living together peacefully. For example, while they may play lip service to peacefulness, people in some societies may not consider that it is important for children to learn to have tolerance and respect for others.  The chart shown above suggests that the importance placed on that particular child quality does indeed vary substantially throughout the world.

On reflection, I have decided that my view that peacefulness is a characteristic of a good society does not actually depend on the degree of support for that view in any society.

Why is peacefulness important?

It is appropriate to begin with the proposition that a good society would have good institutions – norms and laws that are good for its members. What that means is that a good society has institutions that support the flourishing of its individual members.

In my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I identified several basic goods that a flourishing person could be expected to have:

• Wise and well-informed self-direction
• Health and longevity
• Positive relationships
• Living in harmony with nature
• Psychological well-being.

The merits of that list is a matter for ongoing reflection and discussion but I think it is helpful in considering what characteristics a society needs to have if it is to support the flourishing of individual members.

The contributions of peacefulness are fairly obvious. Peaceful societies protect the rights of individuals to self-direct, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others. They contribute to health and longevity my minimizing violence. They provide a context in which people can develop trusting relationships with others.

There isn’t any explicit discussion of the concept of a good society in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing but the extensive discussion of progress in that book is highly relevant. Progress is defined in the book as growth of opportunities for human flourishing. On that basis, the good societies are those in which a great deal of progress has occurred in the past. Progress can be ongoing because there is always scope for good societies to become better.

Importance of consensus about the desirability of peacefulness    

Widespread agreement about the importance of peacefulness to human flourishing provides important support for institutions that enable the peaceful resolution of disputes among people with different political objectives. A society has little hope of becoming good, or remaining good, when an increasing number of people become willing to resort to violence to impose their visions of a good society on others.

What makes a narrative good?

 

I asked myself the question posed above as I was reading Michèle Lamont’s book, Seeing Others, How to Redefine Worth in a Divided World. The passage quoted below seems central to Michèle Lamont’s book:

“The hegemony of the American dream manifests in the emphasis Americans put on neoliberal virtues of material success, self-reliance, individualism, entrepreneurialism, and competitiveness. These criteria of worth have gained more and more influence as “models of ideal selves,” and encourage many to internalize blame for the increasing precarity of their lives. This model can also lead people to seek out a scapegoat group to blame.” (p 31)

Those sentences seem to suggest that neoliberalism encourages people to either internalize blame for misfortune or to seek scapegoat groups to blame.

Internalizing blame

The author doesn’t explain why she believes neoliberalism can cause people to “internalize blame for the increasing precarity of their lives”, but she lists several references in the notes section which may support her claims. The one which seems likely to be most relevant is an article by Glen Adams, Sara Estrada-Villalta, Daniel Sullivan, and Hazel Rose Markus entitled ‘The Psychology of Neoliberalism and the Neoliberalism of Psychology’, Journal of Social Issues 75 (1), 2019.

Adams et al use the term ‘neoliberalism’ to refer to an economic and political movement that came to prominence in the late 1970s, advocating “deregulation of markets and free movement of capital with an emphasis on fluidity and globalization”. Such usage of ‘neoliberalism’ to refer to advocacy of free markets is now common, even though the term was once generally understood to refer to advocacy of left-leaning policies, e.g. a ‘social market economy’, rather than free markets. Like most advocates of free markets, I would prefer to be referred to as a classical liberal or libertarian, but I can usually assume that I am among good company when I am labelled as a neoliberal.

The authors argue that neoliberalism encourages “an entrepreneurial approach to self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for individual growth and personal fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect regulation”. I don’t object to that characterisation. It describes some aspects of the approach to human flourishing in Part III my book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing.

However, the authors suggest that neoliberalism also supports psychological “responsibilization” - an ugly word for an ugly concept. The claim they make is that neoliberals advocate that individuals should not only accept personal responsibility for problems which it may be possible to ameliorate through behaviour change (such as obesity and substance abuse) but also to accept responsibility for misfortune more generally.

Neoliberals argue that free markets tend to reward individual effort, but that doesn’t mean that they believe that economic misfortune is always attributable to lack of individual effort. In fact, one of the characteristics of neoliberalism is recognition that social problems of poverty, unemployment etc. are often attributable to foolish government economic policies that are opposed to economic freedom.

I don’t know any neoliberal who would suggest that individuals should “internalize blame” for any disruption of their lives associated with innovation and competition. Neoliberals are more likely to suggest that people who lose jobs or other remuneration because of the disruptive impact of innovation and competition should view such setbacks as beyond their control. The potential for such setbacks is a price that previous generations have willingly paid to enable to enable their descendants to enjoy the benefits of economic growth. Deirdre McCloskey – a prominent classical liberal – has coined the term, ‘bourgeois deal’, to refer to the willingness of people to accept the potential for their lives to be disrupted by innovation and competition in exchange for ongoing expansion of economic opportunities. (See Bourgeois Equality.)

I doubt that many psychologists would suggest that their clients should “internalize” blame for all the bad things that happen to them. When psychologists suggest that individuals should take responsibility for their lives, I am sure that the vast majority would mean that individuals should focus on taking personal responsibility for problems that are within their locus of control.

Who is responsible for the scapegoat narrative?

It took me some time to work out why Michèle Lamont believes that neoliberalism encourages people to seek out scapegoat groups to blame for misfortune. Her reasoning evidently has more to do with her belief that Donald Trump is a neoliberal than with the beliefs of neoliberals.

On the page following the passage quoted above, Lamont writes: 

“From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, neoliberalism has come to be understood as a precondition for a successful society”.

I believe that free markets help societies to become and remain successful, but it is hard to understand how anyone could perceive Donald Trump to be an advocate of that view. While in office, Trump administered the final blow to the “neoliberal consensus” on international trade that characterised the post-Cold War period, and he currently favors further restrictions on international trade and international movement of labor.  

Lamont’s claim that neoliberalism encourages people to seek out scapegoat groups to blame seems to rest on the behavior of Donald Trump. She observes that in 2015 former president Trump advanced a false narrative in which immigrants from Mexico were rapists and drug dealers. (pp 51-2). During the 2016 campaign Trump appealed to “America’s forgotten workers” by recognizing their plight and “by blaming globalization and immigration for it”. (p 70)

Lamont also suggests that Trump provided “an empowering narrative” for the working class “who are often perceived as “the losers of the system”. (p 165). Early in the book, she notes:

“Instead of depicting ‘everyday Americans’ as ‘deplorables’, as Hillary Clinton was perceived to do in the 2016 presidential campaign, her opponent Donald Trump affirmed their worth in his various electoral speeches, explaining their loss of social status as a result of globalization and immigration.” (p 8)

Lamont’s narrative

The title of Lamont’s book, “seeing others”, refers to “acknowledging people’s existence and positive worth, actively making them visible and valued, reducing their marginalization, and openly integrating them into a group”. (p 6) She suggests that having one’s sense of worth affirmed “is a universal need that is central to our identity as human beings and our quality of life”. (p 7) She urges that we “bridge boundaries with those who are different” via “ordinary universalism”, or “emphasizing similarities over differences”. (p 144)

I don’t object to those sentiments, and I doubt whether many other neoliberals would either. It is certainly appropriate to recognize that ordinary universalism can be “a vital counterweight” to “Nationalist populism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia” which “are on the rise in many countries”. (p 146) As an advocate of ordinary universalism, however, I think it is unfortunate that the author was not sufficiently “inclusive” to recognize that anti-Semitism also belongs on that list.  

I also object to the idea that “individualist approaches” to improving wellbeing “may harm more than they help, since they pull people’s attention away from more meaningful efforts”. (p 48) The author seems to be suggesting that excessive attention is given to approaches that help individuals to improve their assessments of their own worth. Instead, she urges:

“We need to ask ourselves hard questions about how we decide who matters and what we can do to create a more inclusive society.”

It seems to me that people who are lacking in regard for their own worth are unlikely to make a positive contribution to ensuring that the worth of others is appropriately recognized.

Much of the book is devoted to a discussion of how it is possible to change hearts and minds in order to reduce stigmatization of marginalized groups, and thus build a more inclusive society. That discussion is largely beyond the scope of this essay.

In Chapter 7, however, the author discusses the result of a survey of the attitudes of Gen Z students (aged 18 to 23). She seems a little perplexed that Gen Z tend to “embrace some neoliberal ideals – hard work and success” but is pleased that they “combine personal professional aspirations with the promotion of collective well-being”.

The author claims that apart from “the wealthiest of the wealthy” every other group “finds itself reeling from an onslaught of difficulties, disappointments, and anxieties, grasping for dignity and stability”. (p 47) That is implausible and seems at odds with her message about destigmatization of marginalized groups. However, it fits well with another theme of Lamont’s narrative.   

As already mentioned, Lamont suggests that Trump provided “an empowering narrative” for the working class. She suggests that the Democratic party should counter that with “messages of solidarity and dignity”:

“Redirecting working class anger toward the one percent is more likely to sustain fruitful alliances than driving wedges between diverse categories of workers who have so much in common.” (p 159)

Is Lamont’s narrative good?

It seems to me that appropriate criteria to consider whether a narrative is good include whether it encourages ethical behaviour and whether it is factually accurate.

Regarding ethical behaviour, Michèle Lamont seems to be seeking to “mobilize” good narratives when she suggests:

“We engineer our world together by mobilizing narratives that expand recognition of who is worthy.”

Leaving aside engineering, the message she is attempting to convey seems to be that narratives have a role in reinforcing the ethical intuition that we should respect other humans and behave with integrity toward them, irrespective of gender, sexual preference, race, nationality, religion, wealth, social status, political affiliations etc. I am not entirely convinced that she would include ideological opponents among those who are “worthy”, but she does acknowledge that “it is worth trying to understand even people we may strongly disagree with”. (p 159).   

On the question of factual accuracy, Lamont’s narrative, which suggests that the workers have reason to be angry with the wealthy one percent, seems to me to be just as questionable as Donald Trump’s narrative which suggests that the workers have reason to be angry about globalization and immigration. Neither of those narratives promotes an accurate understanding of economic reality.  

Conclusion

In this essay I have examined Michèle Lamont’s narrative that neoliberalism encourages people to either internalize blame for misfortune or to seek scapegoat groups to blame. My conclusion is that her claim that neoliberalism encourages people to internalize blame is baseless. Her claim about seeking to blame scapegoat groups seems to be based on the false belief that Donald Trump is a neoliberal.

Good narratives should encourage ethical behaviour and be factually accurate. One of Lamont’s objectives in this book seems to be to “mobilize” good narratives that reinforce the ethical intuition that we should behave with integrity toward all other humans. However, the factual accuracy of her narrative that workers have reason to be angry with the wealthy one percent is highly questionable. If accepted by governments that approach would encourage unethical redistributions of incomes and further dampen incentives that are essential to the ongoing growth of widespread economic opportunities.

Why am I thinking about selfishness during the season of goodwill?

 

The reason I am thinking about selfishness has to do with Ayn Rand. It has little to do with her attitude toward Christmas, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover the sentiment expressed in the quote above (written by Ayn Rand in the December 1976 entry in The Objectivist Calendar). I had previously wondered whether Rand might have been one of those people who say “Bah Humbug!” at this time of the year.

I have been prompted to think about Rand’s view of selfishness by a discussion that has been taking place on The Savvy Street. Ed Younkins wrote an essay, Objectivism and Individual Perfectionism: A Comparison, which has induced Roger Bissell to write a two-part response. Bissell’s responses have been published under the title: Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Decoded: Replies to Recent Criticisms of the Objectivist Ethics. (Part 2 is here.)

Before I discuss those contributions, it is relevant to mention my previous attempts to understand Ayn Rand’s view of selfishness. Before you finish reading the essay you will understand why that is relevant. 

My previous musings

I was brought up to believe that selfishness is a sin. In Australia, it is common for parents tell children not to be selfish, for example, if they attempt to take more than a fair share of a delicacy at mealtimes. What the parents mean is that such opportunistic behavior shows no regard for others. People of goodwill would not do such things.

Perhaps that understanding of the meaning of selfishness was reinforced by Australia’s “fair go” culture. Dictionary definitions of selfishness suggest, however, that it is also common for selfishness to be viewed similarly in Britain and the United States.

I can’t remember when I first became aware that Ayn Rand viewed selfishness as a virtue, and had written a book entitled The Virtue of Selfishness. During the 1990s, I was certainly aware that most the small number of Australians who were knew of Rand’s existence were of the opinion that she and her followers were ethically challenged and encouraged narcissism. That view was later expounded in a book by Anne Manne, which I commented upon here.

In a post on this blog in 2009 I asked myself: Did Ayn Rand regard selfishness as a virtue? I knew she did, but I pondered the question because the heroes of Atlas Shrugged did not seem to me to be selfish. I noted that Rand’s view that selfishness is a virtue followed from a narrow definition of selfishness as “concern with one’s own interests”, and speculated that Rand had used that definition to draw attention to her opposition to the view that self-sacrifice is a virtue.

A few months later, I wrote on the topic, How far can Ayn Rand’s ethical egoism be defended? That post was an attempt to summarize some of the views of participants in a Cato symposium on ‘What’s living and dead in Ayn Rand’s moral and political thought’. One of the aspects I focused on was the question of whether Rand, like Aristotle, viewed virtue – including regard for others - as a constitutive part of the agent’s own interest, or as an instrumental strategy for attaining that interest. Although the participants in the discussion were all scholars familiar with Rand’s writings, they were unable to agree on that point.

The other aspect I focused on was the question of whether it was defensible for Rand to argue that what is objectively good and right for one individual cannot conflict with what is objectively good and right for another individual. Most, but not all, of the participants viewed that argument as indefensible.

Younkins’s contribution

In his essay, Ed Younkins seeks to compare the ideas of Ayn Rand with those of Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl (the Dougs). Younkins’s purpose is mainly descriptive and explanatory, but Roger Bissell has seen his contribution to be critical of Rand.

The summary table published at the end of Younkins’s essay is reproduced below.

Younkins's Summary Table

My focus here is entries relating Normative Morality, the Virtues, and Conflicts of Interest. The discussion in the preceding post on this blog is relevant to “the Good and Value”.

Younkin’s summary table doesn’t mention Rand’s view of selfishness explicitly, but it is lurking in the background in his discussion of morality, the virtues and conflicts of interest.

Bissell’s response

Roger Bissell doesn’t accept that Rand’s primary concern in respect of normative morality was that the agent should always be the beneficiary of his actions. He notes that in the introduction of The Virtue of Selfishness, Rand states that ego vs altruism is not the fundamental issue in ethics. He claims that “under all the ‘selfishness’ window dressing”, Rand is “actually just another individualistic perfectionist”. Perhaps Bissell is correct, but if so I am left wondering again, as in 2009, what purpose Rand saw in the selfishness window dressing.

With regard to the virtues, Bissell objects to the implication that Rand did not regard them as constitutive of a person’s flourishing. That difference of opinion takes me back to the Cato symposium referred to earlier, where several scholars were unable to agree on that point. My conclusion is that Rand’s views on that matter cannot have been stated clearly and consistently.

Roger Bissell’s support of Rand’s view on conflicts on interest also brings to mind the views expressed in the Cato symposium. I find it difficult to understand why anyone who recognises the importance of property rights would seek to defend the proposition that there can be no conflicts of interest among rational and objective individuals. Nevertheless, Bissell makes a heroic effort:

“To put it yet another way: whatever conflict two rational people might have on the level of individual values is subordinate to and outweighed by the common value they both have in everyone’s doing their own personal best and letting specific outcomes be determined within the framework of voluntary choice and peaceful interaction. They want their specific individual values to be achieved, but not at any cost—while they want their common higher rational values to be upheld, whatever the cost.”   

Perhaps we could imagine two rational and objective individuals with conflicting interests – for example, a farmer and a cowman living on the American prairie in the 19^th century – agreeing on rules about property rights at an authentic constitutional convention, of the kind suggested by James Buchanan and Gordon Tulloch. However, it should be noted that the possibility of agreement has less to do with the personal qualities of the participants than with the imagined institutional context in which participants are uncertain about the impact that rules under consideration might have on their interests, and those of their descendants.

The ability of rational and objective individuals to avoid conflict are greatly enhanced by social, political, and legal orders that enable individuals to pursue their own ends without interfering with each other. Friedrich Hayek made the point clearly:

“The understanding that ‘good fences make good neighbors’, that is, that men can use their knowledge in the pursuit of their own ends without colliding with each other only if clear boundaries can be drawn between their respective domains of free action, is the basis on which all known civilization has grown.” (LLL, Vol1, 107)

The metanormative ethics expounded by the Dougs seems to me to be consistent with that view. Recognition of individual rights provides a context in which individuals can flourish in different ways without interfering with the flourishing of others.

Concluding comments

Ed Younkins concluded his essay by noting that although Ayn Rand differs from Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl “on how a number of issues are expressed, they agree on the desirability of a free society and are among the best-known proponents of capitalism from a neo-Aristotelian perspective”.

Roger Bissell concludes his response by suggesting that Younkins’s “descriptions of Rand’s ideas are too often inaccurate and his explanations too often flow from misunderstanding of those ideas”. I don’t know enough about Rand’s philosophy to make an independent judgement of the veracity of Bissell’s claims, but it is clear from contributions to the Cato symposium that I have mentioned several times that Younkins’s views are shared by other scholars who are familiar with Rand’s philosophical efforts.

It seems to me that this difference of opinion over the description of Rand’s ideas should be viewed in the context of ongoing discussions between those who see Objectivism as a closed system and those who see it as an open system. Those who see objectivism as a closed system accept that people should not label themselves as Objectivists unless they agree with all of Rand’s philosophy. Those who view objectivism as open system believe that it can be enhanced by incorporating new ideas that are broadly compatible with Rand’s ideas. (Younkins discusses the different views here).

I have the impression that those who see objectivism as an open system have an interest in minimizing the difference between Individualistic Perfectionism and Rand’s philosophy. As I see it, the Individualistic Perfectionism developed by Rasmussen and Den Uyl has been influenced by Rand, but deserves to be viewed as a coherent body of ideas that differs somewhat from Objectivism.

Addendum

Ed Younkins has provided the following comment.

"It seems to me that the Dougs (Rasmussen and Den Uyl) want to create some distance between Individual Perfectionism (IP) and Objectivism (O). Roger Bissell, on the other hand, appears to be be acting as if IP does not exist as separate from O. He may be viewing the Dougs as open Objectivists (like he appears to be), but who are mistaken in their interpretation of some of what Rand is saying. Younkins, like Winton Bates, is not wedded to either O or IP. Both Younkins and Bates  may be Rand influenced (as are the Dougs), but each of them develops his own unique and particular philosophical worldview or paradigm of freedom and flourishing (as do the Dougs). Of course, each of the 5 individuals mentioned (who are all friends) is promoting his own vision and version of a philosophy of human flourishing in a free society. This is how it should be."