Causality and Conscious Choice

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Posted by Connor on February 28th, 2008

Agency to act implies an awareness of causality: understanding right and wrong and knowing what consequences might or will follow. A person ignorant of causality, such as a mentally disabled person or toddler, is not morally accountable for their actions.

Thus, conscious choices made by individuals rely upon an environment where causality exists. As Mises explained, an unstable world of constantly changing laws would have negative consequences:

In a world without causality and regularity of phenomena there would be no field for human reasoning and human action. Such a world would be a chaos in which man would be at a loss to find any orientation and guidance. (Ludwig Von Mises, via Quoty)

Free-market economists have exhaustively commented on the scenario where law exceeds its proper bounds, thus providing the legislator with the opportunity to create new laws as they see fit. The law then changes according to who is in power, leading the entrepreneur to devote a portion of his time to studying politics and understanding the current of changed laws, so as to remain in compliance with whatever new legislation is produced.

Speaking of this situation, where government turns into a shape-shifting creature demanding ever-changing acquiescence, Bastiat wrote:

What would be the consequences of such a perversion? … In the first place, it would efface from everybody’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose. (Frederic Bastiat, via Quoty)

What real-world implications do such theoretical abstractions have? Any business owner will attest to the fact that municipal, state, and federal laws make the entrepreneurial process far more difficult than it is sometimes worth. Dealing with “red tape” and wading through bureaucratic policies becomes the name of the game for anybody wishing to simply offer their services in a free exchange with others.

Problems with such laws increase, however, when they become so numerous and befuddling that it’s far easier and more common to break them than it is to obey them. Any time government exceeds its proper and moral bounds, it becomes anybody’s best guess as to what the various branches of government will do next, and what new restrictions they will require.

As Mises noted, such a lack of clear causality begets chaos, which becomes evident whenever somebody tries to take an action. In this environment, any human action is clouded with chaotic uncertainty that suppresses growth and stagnates economic interactions.

Did you enjoy this article? Read Latter-day Liberty!

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2 comments so far. Care to chime in?

Arguably it is traditionalism (and even tribalism) with only the goal of maintaining the status quo that tend to suppress growth, not “chaotic uncertainty” as you put it. As the world becomes more complex (and this applies to the world of civil rights, equality, business, quality of life… everything really) it is in our best interest to embrace that complexity, and manage it to the best of our ability, not continue our futile attempts to stuff it into a box and control it.

Complexity will not decrease. And the government has no moral obligation to legislate tradition or simplicity, but rather a moral obligation to promote liberty, fairness, and opportunity.

#1 jasonthe | February 28th, 2008 3:02 PM

Arguably it is traditionalism (and even tribalism) with only the goal of maintaining the status quo that tend to suppress growth, not “chaotic uncertainty” as you put it.

I would argue that even in an economic environment devoid of “traditionalism”, yet one that is prone to shifting laws and continuously changing economic regulation, that you will see far less economic growth (if you define growth as being the expansion of services and exchanges taking place in the market).

As Bastiat noted, “Capital and labor will be frightened; they will no longer be able to count on the future. Capital, under the impact of such a doctrine, will hide, flee, be destroyed.”

…it is in our best interest to embrace that complexity, and manage it to the best of our ability, not continue our futile attempts to stuff it into a box and control it.

Market and societal complexity does not necessarily entail nor necessitate legislative complexity.

And the government has no moral obligation to legislate tradition or simplicity, but rather a moral obligation to promote liberty, fairness, and opportunity.

Government has a moral obligation to legislate based upon natural law and in accordance with Constitutional law. This then implies promoting (securing would be a better word) liberty. Fairness is a myth, as equality under the law never promotes nor creates fairness. As our mothers often told us, “life isn’t fair”. And opportunity is likewise outside of the bounds of government, as equality under the law also leaves to each person the ability, power, and responsibility to create his own opportunities.

#2 Connor | February 28th, 2008 3:26 PM