True Individualism vs. False Individualism

Every fourth friday, I meet with a philosophy group. In our August philosophy discussion, we discussed the essay Individualism: True and False by the social theorist and economist Friedrich Hayek. According to Hayek, there are two opposing ideas about how to understand individuals and the society in which they live.  Hayek calls these ideas true individualism and false individualism. These ideas permeate all social and political thought. They apply to beliefs about reason and knowledge, economics, justice, equality, power, tradition, marriage and family, and government. In this post, I will briefly introduce the concepts of true and false individualism and discuss how they relate to ideas about reason and knowledge.

True Individualism and False individualism
True individualism is a social theory that says that individuals cannot be properly understood without understanding the social processes that surround him. As people make individual decisions they contribute to a social order that is not the result of human design. According to Hayek, “if left free, men will often achieve more than individual human reason could design or foresee.” (individualism: True and False pg 11) Hayek associates true individualism with Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lord Acton, and John Locke.

False individualism on the other hand asserts that individuals are best understood as existing independently of social processes. And, it seeks to understand society as existing independently of the individuals that compose that society. False individualism assumes that reason "is always fully and equally available to all humans and that everything which man achieves is the direct result of, and therefore subject to, the control of individual reason.” False individualism seeks to free individuals from social constraints in order to promote liberated self-expression. This view has been expressed by John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, René Descartes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and, William Godwin.

Reason and Knowledge
According to true individualism, any individual's own knowledge alone is grossly inadequate for social decision making. Knowledge comes primarily from experience which is “transmitted socially in largely inarticulate forms from prices which indicate costs, scarcities, and preferences, to traditions which evolve from the day to day experiences of millions in each generation, winnowing out in Darwinian competition what works from what does not work.” (Conflict of Visions pg 36)

In another work, Hayek wrote that, “man has certainly more often learnt to do the right thing without comprehending why it was the right thing, and he still is better served by custom than understanding.” There is thus, “more ‘intelligence’ incorporated in rules of conduct than in man’s thoughts about his surroundings.” (Law, Legislation, and Liberty pg 157)

In his essay on individualism Hayek argues that since man’s reason is inadequate to intelligently design society, individuals are justified in following, and ought to follow, social conventions that have evolved over time.

...the individual, in participating in the social processes, must be ready and willing to adjust himself to changes and to submit to conventions which are not the result of intelligent design, whose justification in the particular instance may not be recognizable, and which to him will often appear unintelligible and irrational.

Thus according to true individualism, knowledge for how to act in social contexts comes from mostly from experience. It is systemic and dispersed in the many, and is expressed through social norms and customs.

False individualism rejects these ideas in favor of what Hayek calls “Rationalism” which accepts only what can “justify” itself to reason and evidence. One proponent of rationalism—the philosopher William Godwin—expressed this view when he said that “Reason is the proper instrument, and the sufficient instrument for regulating the actions of mankind.” Traditions and social norms are looked upon with skepticism and disdain unless they are validated via specifically articulated rationality. This is because knowledge is viewed as, “conscious, explicit knowledge of individuals, the knowledge which enables us to state that this or that is so-and-so.”

Implicit in Hayek’s view of rationalism is that it can lead to both socialism and extreme forms of libertarianism. Rationalism can lead to socialism because according to Godwin, “persons with narrow views and observation,” readily accept whatever happens to prevail in their society. (Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol II, pg 206) It is only the “cultivated minds” who can deliberately see past the social norms and traditions of the masses and deliberately design a society that will benefit all. Rationalism thus sees knowledge and reason as concentrated in the few who see themselves as surrogate decision-makers on behalf of the masses. This is why Hayek believes that rationalism often leads “directly to socialism” which assumes that society can only improve if it is deliberately designed by the wisest most cultivated minds. Taken to another extreme, rationalism can also lead to forms of libertarianism which seeks to reduce all social interactions to deliberate contract making between individuals as if they could deliberately design their lives from scratch apart from society or government.

According to Thomas Sowell who wrote extensively about Hayek, “Rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is often a claim—or arrogation—of power to stifle the autonomy of others,” on the basis of assumed superior wisdom and articulated rationality. (Knowledge and Decisions pg 103)

Summary
Another way to understand true and false individualism with respect to knowledge and reason is to contrast how each side answers the questions, “what is the locus of discretion?” and, “what is the mode of discretion?” as shown in the graphic below:

According to true individualism, individuals should be left free to make their own decisions within a framework of systemic rationality. Systemic rationality refers to the experience of the many as expressed in social norms, customs, traditions, and even price signals within an economy. According to false individualism, individuals should be free from the constraints of social norms and traditions. They can only be free if they are liberated by experts who exempt themselves from social norms and make social decisions on behalf of “society”. False individualism thus assumes that man can comprehend society enough to design it.

---

1. Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order

2. Thomas Sowell, Conflict of Visions

3. Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty

4. William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol II

5. Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions

Notes:
Compare to Conservative Rationalism vs. Enlightenment Rationalism

Human Rights

Many talk of rights without describing them clearly. In this post I will.

1. try to define the concept of rights clearly and describe what type of thing rights are.

2. argue that universal human rights imply universal human obligations.

3. argue that human rights exist independently from rights that are granted by an institution like the state.

Defining Human Rights
Human Rights are rights that a person has in virtue of being human. As such they exist independently from any system of laws enacted by any institution such as a state or government. Some argue that universal human rights do not exist independently of a government. Jeremy Bentham called the idea of human rights, "rhetorical nonsense". Bentham thought that because we do not discover human rights in the same way that people have noses, then there must not be any rights "out there" to be found. While it is true that we do not discover human rights in the same way that we discover that water is H2O, it does not follow that human rights do not exist. 

The existence of human rights depends on a collective recognition or acceptance of their existence. The existence of human rights is an observer-relative fact; not an observer-independent facts. The difference between these two types of facts is that observer-relative facts depend on the beliefs and attitudes of human beings while observer-independent facts exist regardless of what human beings think or believe. 

Let me try to explain the distinction between these two types of facts more clearly. An example of an observer-relative fact is money. When one has a $5 bill, he/she is entitled to buy $5 worth of goods. On a $5 note, we read the words, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." If one only believed that observer-independent facts existed, they would naturally want to ask, "How do they know that it is legal tender?...Did they perform some chemical test to see if the $5 bill really was money?" Of course these questions miss the point. We do not discover that a certain piece of paper is money. We declare it to be money. The piece of paper and the ink stains that constitute the $5 bill are NOT sufficient to make it money. We need the actual piece of paper PLUS something else to make it money. That something else is the collective recognition that those pieces of paper count as money. 

Human rights are the same way. When one is a human being, he or she has the right to perform certain actions, but the mere existence of a certain biological organism that we call a human being is not sufficient to ensure that person has rights. You need a certain biological organism (a human being) PLUS collective recognition that they have those rights.

I think that the concept of human rights will be clearer when one understands how institutional facts are created in general. I describe how they are created in more detail in my post about Social Ontology. Here I will summarize some of those ideas:

Summary of Social Ontology
There are at least three things that are needed to create institutional facts. You need status functions, collective recognition, and constitutive rules.

Humans are different from all other forms of animal life because humans can impose functions on objects where the objects cannot perform the function solely in virtue of their physical structure. To continue using the example of money, we can assign the function of money to little green pieces of paper. These pieces of paper have the status of money in virtue of the function that we collectively assign to them. When we create a function by collective recognition of an assigned status, we are creating a "Status Function". Status functions are everywhere. Examples of status functions include money, marriages, touchdowns, sacraments, driver's licenses, presidents, private property, holidays, etc.

Status functions exist as part of a system of "constitutive rules" that are created by language. Constitutive rules create the behavior that they regulate. For example, the rules of chess create the possibility of playing the game of chess. Similarly, status functions are constitutive rules that create observer-relative facts. Constitutive rules of status functions have the logical form "X counts as Y" in context "C". Here are a few examples:

• A certain area of the field (X) counts as an end zone (Y) in the game of football (C)

• Such and such a sound wave (X) counts as a sentence (Y) in the english language (C)

• This piece of paper (X) counts as money (Y) in the United States (C)

The "X counts as Y in context C" formula is not intended to show how people explicitly think about institutional facts. In most cases institutional facts are not explicitly stated. The formula is just a useful way to think about how people are prepared to regard things or treat them as having a certain status.

Status functions are always associated with social power. This power is simply the ability to get people to behave in a certain way. There are positive social powers such as rights, permissions, authorizations, certifications, and entitlements. There are also negative powers such as obligations, duties, and requirements. These powers provide us with reasons for acting that are independent of our inclinations and desires. For example, if I recognize something as your property, then I am obligated not to take it or use it without your permission. Likewise, if I have the status the president of the United States, then I am authorized to command the military.

Status functions are always associated with social powers that lock into human rationality by creating "desire-independent reasons for action". In the game of American football, the end zone creates a conditional power, such that when a player makes it to the end zone with the ball, his team is entitled to 6 points while the opposite team is required to recognize that they have 6 points even though the opposite team would rather not recognize those points.

With this brief foundation in place, I can more precisely describe universal human rights. A universal human right is described by an observer-relative constitutive rule such that:

• A certain biological organism (X) counts as a human being (Y) in the context of the whole universe (C).

• The power associated with this constitutive rule is that any organism that satisfies the conditions of the Y term has certain powers (rights and entitlements) such as the right to life or the right to free speech.

Universal Human Rights imply Universal Human Obligations
This framing implies that all universal human rights imply universal human obligations. Rights are always rights against somebody. If I have a right to walk in a park, then everyone else has an obligation not to interfere with that activity. If A has a right against B, then B has an obligation to A. For example, the bill of rights are rights against Congress, they place congress under an obligation not to interfere with the rights articulated in the Bill of Rights such as the right to free speech.

Put more precisely:

• If a human being (H) has a right to perform action (A), then other people (P) have an obligation (O) not to interfere with (H) performing action (A)

Positive & Negative Rights
Human rights can be categorized into positive and negative rights. The formulation of rights above is an example of a negative right. The type of rights found in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are negative rights. The rights laid out in the founding documents of America impose an obligation on everyone not to interfere with certain human activities such as the establishment or exercise of religion, or free speech, etc. In other words negative rights are rights that people have to be left alone.

Positive rights require more than just non-interference. They require positive action in ensuring that everyone receives those rights. The logical form of a positive right would look something like this:

• If a human being (H) has a right to (B), then other people (P) have an obligation (O) to ensure that (H) obtains (B)

A formulation of human rights that can apply to both positive and negative rights can go something like this:

• A Human Being (H) has a human right (R) which generates an obligation (O) for other people (P)

In some situations, the distinction between positive and negative rights is blurred. Nevertheless, I think these concepts can help us to avoid confusion in many cases. For example, if I have the right to life and that right is a negative right, then it is implied that other people are obligated not to harm my life, but it does not imply that people are obligated to provide me with food or expensive healthcare so as to prolong my life as long as possible. Similarly, people in remote parts of the world have a right to life, but since it is a negative right, I have no obligation to provide them with food and healthcare. I think that the right to life can only be properly understood as a negative right in this context. This does not mean that we should not help others, but that it does not make sense to have an enforceable obligation to do so.

Universal Human Rights are Institution-independent
But what happens when other people (P) do not want to fulfill their obligations(O)?  
When other people do not want to fulfill their obligations to other human beings, and those human beings are not in a position to guarantee that their own rights are not infringed, then it becomes necessary for some third party to protect human rights by ensuring that other people fulfill their obligations. That third party could be the government which has the obligation to protect human rights by enacting civil laws that are enforceable because the government can use brute force. Therefore our logical formula that describes human rights can be expanded as follows:

• A Human Being (H) has a human right (R) which generates an obligation (O) for other people (P) which right creates a different obligation (O2) for a third party (G) to protect (H) and his/her rights.

An application of this formula would be something like this:

• A human being (Gavin Jensen) has a human right (right to life) which generates and obligation (do not murder Gavin) for other people (everyone in the world) which right creates another obligation (protect Gavin's right to life) for a third party (the United States government) to protect (Gavin Jensen's) right to life.

When the government creates laws, they are obligated to ensure that those laws respect human rights. If human rights are really universal then that means that governments that protect those rights cannot have a system of pure democracy. If they want to protect human rights, then they must enforce certain laws that cannot be changed by popular vote.

For human rights to be universal, they must exist outside of the scope of any government. They do not come from a constitution or any other legal document. Constitutions and laws are attempts to protect pre-existing human rights. The purpose of civil law is to implement human rights. Thomas Paine wrote in The Rights of Man,

"Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection."

Citizens can sometimes create state recognized rights that do not depend on universal human rights. In these cases the obligations created by those rights should only apply to the citizens of that institution. For instance, if same-sex marriage is not a universal human right and a state wants to grant the right of marriage to same-sex couples, then they can do that but that right would only create an obligation for the citizens of that state. But people outside of that institution would not be obligated to recognize that institution-relative right.

Human rights must be justified 
Even though status functions exist because of collective recognition of those status functions, it does not mean that they are arbitrary. Some claims to human rights are valid if they can be justified, while other claims are invalid when they cannot be justified. In this post, I have not tried to justify any specific human right. I have only tried to outline what human rights are and explain the nature of their existence. Justifying specific human rights is a topic for later posts.

Summary of main points

1. Human rights exist just as money exists. Both are observer-relative phenomenon meaning that we do not discover human rights (or money) in the same way that we discover that water is made of H2O.

2. Because human beings have a recognized status function, they have social powers that include rights to perform certain actions.

3. Analyzing human rights in this way makes it very clear that human rights imply human obligations.

4. There are two types rights—positive and negative.

5. Human rights exist independently of laws created within any institution and apply universally.

An Introduction to Social Ontology

The purpose of this post is to explain the ontology of social facts to create a foundation for future posts. Ontology is a fancy word that refers to the nature of existence. In other words, I want to explain how social facts come into existence. John Searle is perhaps the most influential living philosopher on the subject of social ontology. John Searle's philosophical project is to try to explain how we get meaningful social facts like the existence of money, elections, marriages, touchdowns, cocktail parties etc. Searle frames his work with the following question:

“"How, if at all, can we reconcile a certain conception of the world as described by physics, chemistry, and the other basic sciences with what we know, or think we know, about ourselves as human beings? How is it possible in a universe consisting entirely of physical particles in fields of force that there can be such things as consciousness, intentionality, free will, language, society, ethics, aesthetics, and political obligations? ... This is the single overriding question in contemporary philosophy."

The following provides the conceptual apparatus for answering such a question:

Mind-independent and mind-dependent facts 
The first conceptual tool necessary to solve the puzzle is the distinction between Mind-Independent facts and Mind-Dependent facts. Mind-independent facts are facts that exist even if all human beings suddenly vanished. These facts include the existence of particles and forces, mountains and rivers, space and time. Mind-Dependent facts on the other hand exist only because they are created by the beliefs of conscious beings. If we go, they go. Mind-Dependent facts include such things as money, elections, marriages, touchdowns, cocktail parties, religious sacraments, lawyers, good and evil etc. So we are concerned primarily with this class of fact. In previous posts, I have called these observer-independent/dependent facts. Sometimes I refer to mind-independent facts as Brute Facts.

mind-indpendent-dependent

Collective recognition
Social facts require human cooperation. Mind-Dependent facts are only facts if everyone collectively recognizes and accepts them as facts. For examples, Barack Obama is president of the united states only because he is collectively recognized as being the president. If people stopped recognizing him as such, then he would cease to be president. Collective recognition does not mean that everyone explicitly supports a given fact, but at a minimum they have to implicitly accept it or go along with it.

Assignment of function
All functions are Mind-Dependent. Functions only exist relative from conscious beings who represent objects as having a certain function.

Both human beings and higher animals can impose functions on objects. For example, a rock by itself doesn't have any function, but in the hands of a monkey it can serve the function of a mallet or hammer. Similarly, a screwdriver has no innate function. It only has the function of a screwdriver because humans assign it that function. In both of these cases, the function is matched with some physical property or shape of the object.

Status functions
Humans are unique in that they have the ability to assign functions to objects or people regardless of the physical structure of that object or person. So for example, we can assign the status of money to a piece of paper, or the status of chairman to an individual. Unlike the screwdriver whose function matches its shape, there is really nothing about the piece of paper that makes it money. Likewise, there is nothing intrinsic about Barack Obama that makes him president either. He is president because everyone collectively recognizes his status. The collective assignment of function to objects results in a Status Function. Status functions cannot exist without collective recognition. Status functions are pervasive. We are basically locked into an invisible system of status functions. How do status functions work in the real world anyhow?

Constitutive rules
There are 2 types of rules—regulative rules and constitutive rules. Regulative rules regulate preexisting forms of behavior. For example, the rule to drive on the right side of the road is a regulative rule. On the other hand, constitutive rules don't regulate antecedently existing forms of behavior, they create the very possibility of the behavior that they regulate. Take the example of Chess, the rules of chess create the very possibility for the existence of chess. Without the constitutive rule, there would be no chess moves to regulate at all. Regulative rules regulate activities that could exist independently of rules. But, constitutive rules regulate activities that are dependent on the rules for their existence. Status functions exist only relative to a system of constitutive rules.

The constitutive rules of status functions have the structure "X counts as Y in context C". For example, this piece of paper(X) counts as $1(Y) in the United States(context C). Barack Obama(X) counts as the president(Y) of the United States(C). Such and such a move(X) counts as a legal knight move(Y) in the game of chess(C). The fascinating feature of this structure is that it can iterate upward indefinitely where the "Y" term from a lower level can constitute an "X" term at a higher level. For example:

Such and such a noise(X1) counts as a sentence(Y1) in English. Such and such an english sentence(Y1=X2) can count as making a promise(Y2) Uttering such and such a promise(Y2=X3) counts as undertaking a marriage contract(Y3).

This iterative feature can be illustrated with the lowest level at the bottom as such:

iteration

Summary so far
 So far I have explained that social facts are collectively recognized status functions. These status functions are created by the constitutive rule "X counts as Y in context C". This rule can iteratate upward indefinitely. Another feature of status functions is that they almost never exist alone. They always exist as part of a much larger systems of constitutive rules. Status functions ultimately bottom out in brute facts that are Mind-Independent. For example, is assigned to some physical brute fact such as a piece of gold, or a piece of paper or a magnetic trace on a computer disc.

Exceptions
There are some exceptions to the constitutive rule "X counts as Y". Sometimes we can just create a "Y". One example is the corporation. To create a corporation we just say we are creating a corporation. There is no brute fact "X" that is the corporation. It isn't the building of the business or the businessmen. This ingenious social fact allows people to make money while being protected from losses.

The role of language
Language is essential to the existence of status functions. You can imagine a tribe that a had language but didn't have money, or private property, or governments, but you can't imagine having money and governments without language.

Language is a system of constitutive rules and is necessary for the creation of status functions. As I wrote in a previous post, there are 5 and only 5 things you can do with language. Here, I just want to talk about one of the things one can do with language called "Declarations". Declarations are speech acts that change reality by representing reality as being so changed. A rough test to see if something is a declaration is if you can add the word “hereby” in front of it as in “I hereby declare war.” Examples of declarations include “this meeting is adjourned”, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” and,”This note is legal tender for all debts public and private”. Status functions are language-dependent. Social facts exist because we use language to declare that they exist.

Status functions have power!
Status functions are the glue that hold society together because they have power. According to John Searle:

Without exception, the status functions carry what I call “deontic powers.” That is, they carry rights, duties, obligations, requirements, permissions, authorizations, entitlements, and so on. I introduce the expression “deontic powers” to cover all of these, both the positive deontic powers (e.g., when I have a right) and the negative deontic powers (e.g., when I have an obligation),

The status function of money entitles me to buy goods. The status function of President of the United States authorizes the president to give certain orders. The president is also put under an obligation to uphold the constitution. Some deontic powers are conditional. For instance, in some states a voter can vote for a political candidate only upon the condition that the voter is registered for the party of that candidate.

Desire-independent reasons for action
Status functions can lock into human rationality by providing desire-independent reasons to acting in a certain way. These reasons are created by the deontic powers of status functions. For example, the president has reasons for upholding the constitution regardless of whether he wants to or not because he has the status function of being the president. Employees have an obligation to come into work even when he/she doesn't feel like it. The status function of husband provides the man reasons to act differently than his initial inclinations—to be faithful, and to protect his family and so forth.

Summary
To summarize, the ontology of social facts come from the collective recognition of status functions which are created through constitutive rules. These constitutive rules usually have the logical form "X counts as Y in context C" and are created by speech acts called "Declarations". Since I have learned about status functions, reading the news has been fascinating because I can see the world in terms of status functions. In future posts I plan to apply this way of analyzing social ontology to the subjects of human rights and religious institutions.

Human Rights Part 1

This is part one in a series of posts on human rights. The concept of human rights touches everyone even though it is sometimes an ambiguous concept that is poorly justified. Since it is so foundational, we should really examine it closely. The following are some common beliefs about human rights.

Belief 1—Human rights come from God or nature
 Some believe that rights do not come from law, but they are God-given or come from nature. Because they are not given by any man they cannot be taken away. This is the meaning behind the phrase unalienable rights.

Belief 2—Human rights don't actually exist.
Some argue that human rights don't actually exist. Jeremy Bentham who founded utilitarianism and influenced John Stuart Mill held this view. He said,

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts. But this rhetorical nonsense ends in the old strain of mischievous nonsense: for immediately a list of these pretended natural rights is given, and those are so expressed as to present to view legal rights. And of these rights, whatever they are, there is not, it seems, any one of which any government can, upon any occasion whatever, abrogate the smallest particle.

Belief 3—Human rights come from social contracts and law.
 The social contract argument says that rights come a social contract that citizens make with their governments. Citizens consent—either implicitly or explicitly to surrender some of their freedoms in exchange for a protection of other rights.

In the upcoming posts, I will write about my own beliefs about rights and how they are, or perhaps are not, justified.

Politics and the Limitations of Reality

The purpose of this post is to explain how political goals are limited by reality. Reality Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. When we talk of reality, we are talking of a real world that exists independently of anyone's thoughts and experiences. We call certain propositions "facts" if they corresponds to reality.

Categorizing Reality Although there is only one reality, there are broadly speaking 2 ways to categorize reality. The first category relates to facts that are observer-independent such as the existence of particles, forces, mountains, and galaxies. I will refer to these phenomenon as Brute Facts. Brute facts exist regardless of what anyone thinks or believes. The second category is often more interesting and more complex. It relates to facts that are observer-dependent such as the existence of money, marriages, elections, and cocktail parties. I will refer to these facts as institutional facts. Institutional facts only exist insofar as they are represented as existing by human beings. (I briefly began to explain how institutional facts are created here). The fact that Barack Obama is president of the United States is an objective fact even though there is nothing intrinsic about Obama that makes it the case that he is president. Obama is simply president because everyone believes that he is the president. If someone were to say that Obama was not the president, he/she would simply be mistaken. The following chart visualizes various types of brute facts and institutional facts.

categorizing-reality

The Limitations of Reality Political goals are limited by reality. For instance, one cannot create something out of nothing. One must work with the materials available. If Howard Roark plans to build a skyscraper, he is limited by the brute facts of reality. He must understand the structural limitations of load-bearing beams, the effects of temperature on the contraction and expansion of the building, and various geological limitations, etc. Understanding how Roark is limited by institutional facts is a bit more complicated. He limited by whether he can find investors, he is limited by environmental laws, by zoning restrictions, by various city ordinances and other building codes, by the aesthetic tastes of the investors and by others in the immediate community. For example, the city of Charleston, South Carolina has extremely strict building codes that are meant to preserve the historical appearance of the city. Howard Roark could not build a skyscraper in Charleston, not because of any brute fact of reality, but because he is limited by what is institutionally "given". How do the limitations of reality apply to political goals?

Politics Politics, roughly defined, is the art of running government and state affairs. Politics deals with decisions made within a social context. When one desires to achieve a political goal such improving education, or increasing prosperity and human well-being, they essentially desire to change reality. This does not mean that they are trying to change the brute facts such as the existence of forces and particles. It means that they are trying to change social reality—or in other words the observer-dependent aspects of reality. The chances of success in achieving a political goal are increased when reality—both physical (observer-independent) and social (observer-dependent)—are understood.

Political goals are limited by brute facts It is a brute fact of reality that some social goals are impossible. The most basic brute limitations are resources and time. For example, a social goal to give everyone everything they want is impossible because resources are limited. This is called scarcity. Another basic brute fact is the limitation of time. Time is not free. The value of time is whatever alternative opportunities must be foregone in order to use it for a particular purpose. Spending 3 hours watching television costs the couch potato 3 hours that he could have worked and earned money. This is called opportunity cost. Everything has a resource cost and a time cost. Those 2 costs combined equals the total cost of every human activity.

Another vitally important brute fact to understand is human nature. The existence of consciousness itself is a brute fact and conscious beings have a "brute" nature. Human nature is a product of biological evolution. As such human beings are born with innate tendencies. We tend to be mostly self-interested but we can sometimes be cooperative as well. We have strong responses to honor and shame. Men and women vary in their respective natures. Men are more aggressive and women are more nurturing and social. We have free will to choose, but we do not have the power to choose the consequences of our actions. All of these aspects of human nature are observer-independent.

Political goals are limited by institutional facts Institutional facts are dependent on human agreement for their existence. They also ultimately rest upon or bottom out in the brute facts. For example, the institutional fact of money exists only because everyone agrees that it exists, but the status of money is always assigned to some physical brute fact such as a piece of gold, or a piece of paper or a magnetic trace on a computer disc. Once we have institutional facts we can examine how they limit political goals.  Since they are dependent on human agreement and recognition for their existence, political goals are limited by whether or not people agree to recognize a given institutional fact. if you are trying to change social reality and you do not have enough people in agreement, you will fail in your political goals. Institutional facts are like habits. The older the institutional fact, the more difficult it is to change it.

Brute facts about political institutional facts It so happens that there are brute facts about social reality. Institutional facts exist because people agree that they exist. But there are observer-independent results and consequence that do not arise from forces and particles or anything like that, but they arise from human transactions alone. Recessions fit this description.

Recessions are a social phenomenon and they would not exist unless people existed. But recessions do not exist simply because people believe that they exist. They are separate from things like marriages and money which only exist because they are represented as existing. If no one believed it was a recession, it would still be a recession. Whereas in the case of the existence of presidents and cocktail parties, if no one ever believed that they existed, they would never exist. The existence of recessions are brute facts that are discovered even though they are consequences of institutional facts such as buying and selling goods and services. Business cycles are brute limitations on political goals. We cannot create a good economy just by believing and agreeing to have a good economy. We have to recognize that there are some consequences that are independent of anyone's beliefs and intentions that occur because of human transactions.

Inflation is also a brute fact about social reality. The book The Ascent of Money by financial economist Niall Ferguson describes the inflation of 16th century Spain. "They dug up so much silver [in the new world]...that the metal itself dramatically declined in value—that is to say, in its purchasing power with respect to other goods." This inflation was not intended,  but it led to Spain's economic and imperial decline.

Summary I have tried to broadly describe the concepts of reality as it applies to a specific type of institutional change—namely political change. There are 2 categories of reality—brute facts and institutional facts. Political goals are best achieved when one understands and accepts the limitations of reality.

Objectivity, Subjectivity & Social Reality

There is much confusion surrounding the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity. Basically defined, objectivity refers to that which is the same for everyone while subjectivity refers to that which is different for everyone. In the book, Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization, the famous philosopher John Searle poses a fascinating question related to objectivity, subjectivity, and social reality:

How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? One of the reasons I find that questions so fascinating is that it is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits - as mindful, rational, speech-act performing, free-will having, social, political human beings - in a world that we know independently consist of mindless, meaningless, physical particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? 

One part of the answer is giving a better understanding of the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity. One of Searle’s favorite examples is money which provides a concrete example to solve the paradox:

One reason why the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity are so misunderstood is that there is ambiguity between different senses of each of these terms. There is an epistemic sense and there is an ontological sense for each term. “Epistemic” simply means relating to claims or knowledge more generally. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. “Ontological” means pertaining to entities. Ontology is the study of existence. The question of social facts seems paradoxical because the objective/subjective distinction doesn't account for ontological and epistemic dimensions. Here is a diagram that spells out these distinctions:

In the first row of the above diagram, there are epistemically subjective beliefs. We call these opinions because there is no fact behind those beliefs that make it the same for everyone. Some people like Rembrandt better, some like Rubens better. On the left side, we have the proposition that Rembrandt was born in 1606. This is an epistemically objective claim because, unlike epistemically subjective beliefs, there is a fact of the matter that makes epistemically objective propositions true for everyone. When an epistemically objective proposition accurately reflects reality, we say that it is “true”. This is the correspondence theory of truth.

In the second row of the diagram, there is the ontological dimension. On the bottom right, we have facts or entities that exist independently of what anyone thinks or beliefs. These include mountains, molecules, tectonic plates, events, etc. The fact that Rembrandt was born in 1606 is an objective event that happened regardless of whether people believe such a fact. The bottom left quadrant is the most interesting. Here we have ontologically subjective entities such as consciousness itself which include our beliefs, emotions, intentions, pains, tickles, etc.

Going back to our example of money, the above distinctions clarify that the proposition that “certain pieces of paper are money” is an epistemically objective claim. But that fact that it is money comes from our ontologically subjective beliefs.

This is not the whole story of money of course, but it does dissolve the paradox of how you can get objectivity from subjectivity. A more complete account of how things like money come from our subjective beliefs would include an explanation of the conditions that are necessary to create ontologically objective facts. These conditions include language, collective intentionality, and status functions to name a few. The existence of language reveals certain features of consciousness such as collective intentionality. Collective intentionality roughly refers to the collective agreement. Status functions are the assignments we make where we assign a purpose to objects and events. In the case of money, we assign certain pieces of paper the function of money and it works because of our collective recognition of this fact. For a more complete explanation, please see my post on social ontology.

The above distinctions are not only useful in understanding social facts such as money, marriage, political appointments, and cocktail parties, but they are useful in dispelling some common misconceptions about science. For example, some people think that because science is “objective” and consciousness is “subjective” that there cannot be a science of consciousness. But this is making the same fallacy of ambiguity that was mentioned earlier. There can indeed be an epistemically objective science about a domain that is ontologically subjective—such as consciousness for example.

There are other misunderstandings about objectivity, such as the belief that objectivity is an illusion because people subjectivity experience the world in different ways. This post provides a foundation to address this error which I plan on address in future posts.

Money—An Origin Story

Money solves a huge problem. As I explained in my last post it is better to specialize and trade, than to try to produce everything alone. Imagine that money does not exist. People simply barter. The word barter means that people simply trade goods for goods without using a medium of exchange. Now imagine that I am a designer and I have appendicitis. I can either die, or I can find a surgeon that is willing to trade design work for an appendectomy. I will likely die before I can ever find such a surgeon. This problem is what economists call the double coincidence of wants problem. Simply defined, if I am in an economy that trades goods for goods, then I have to find somebody that wants what I have and simultaneously has what I want. This is a huge transaction cost. In virtually every known society or culture something called "money" evolves to solve the double coincident want problem. Instead of trading goods for goods individuals trade goods for something that is commonly traded, that everybody wants and then they use that thing to trade. Money is anything that is commonly accepted in trade. Money does not have to be issued by the government to be used as money. In fact there are many government issued monies that people don't commonly accept for trade.

The earliest known form of money was red ochre in Aboriginal Australia. Ancient Mesopotamia traded in wheat. Marco Polo records that spices were used as money in the East. The Herodotus recorded that the ancient Lydians were the first people to use coins for money. Prisoners have been known to use cigarettes as money. The big stones in the picture below was used as money (That money didn't move much but was exchanged often in word only.)

Rai—stone-Money-Micronesia

We could agree on anything to be money—even invisible bits of data. It doesn't matter what we use. It only matters that we commonly accept it. Money is one of the most important inventions of all time. Individual and societal success depends on wise usage of this most valuable invention.