Here is chapter 18 of the voluntarist handbook, section
titled, the utilitarian case for voluntourism by Danny Duchamp,
no position. But volunteerism is defensible
from a utilitarian perspective. Even if I convince you of this
you might respond that. You are not a utilitarian.
So this does not convince you of voluntourism.
However you needn't be a utilitarian to be persuaded by
utilitarian. Givens utilitarianism is the
proposition that you should do whatever maximizes utility or
the Fulfillment of human values. You may not think that maximally
fulfilling human values is always the right thing to do.
But you probably do care about human values, at least a little.
So it's still worth taking utilitarian analysis into
account, or perhaps. You are a utilitarian that works
too. Volunteerism is the proposition
that interactions in which both parties consent, trade Games.
Etc. Are universally preferable to
interactions in which one party coerces.
The other violence theft Etc. I could plausibly.
Establish the utilitarian justification for voluntourism
simply by referring to the billions lifted out of poverty.
Through voluntary trade, over the past couple of centuries
since 1820 GDP per Capital worldwide has increased 15 fold
the percentage of people living in extreme poverty less than a
dollar and ninety cents a day. Inflation-adjusted has fallen
from over 90 percent to under 10 percent and the average person
has access to a variety of food entertainment and technology.
That even Kings under previous economic systems, couldn't dream
of the utilitarian benefits of voluntary, trade are.
So gargantuan that no honest utilitarian could enter.
Pain, any alternative. However, this argument doesn't
make clear. Why we can attribute the
triumphs of capitalism to voluntourism.
More importantly it misses the deeper philosophical connection
between voluntarism and utilitarianism to resolve those
issues. Let us begin from the
perspective of a utilitarian. The problem with utilitarian
analysis is that some values are mutually exclusive.
If I eat an apple, you can't eat it too.
My value for Apple eating is fulfilled.
And yours is not, we therefore must determine who values it
more. Sometimes this may be
intuitively obvious. We probably agree that if I'm
dying of hunger. Well, you aren't even sure if
you'll finish the Apple, then I value it more than you in other
situations. It isn't so obvious.
If neither of us is starving in both of us like apples, then who
values it more. It's hard to say.
Why is it so obvious in? In the extreme case perhaps
because we know I would be willing to sacrifice more.
If the Apple were on a high Branch, I'd be willing to climb
up to get it. If the Apple were for sale, I'd
be willing to pay more, this understanding drawn from the
extreme case gives us a way of estimating who value something
more when it isn't. So obvious namely, if I would be
willing to pay more for something in effort money or
anything else, then I value it more.
Fortunately this system is largely self arranging.
If one of us currently possesses the apple and the other values
at more, the latter can buy it from the former.
Not only does this mean, the buyer is better off, the seller
must be too. If the buyer did not value the
Apple more than the money, he would not have bought if the
seller did not value the money more than the apple.
He would not have sold. It is only largely self
arranging because while people are generally incentivize To act
in accordance with it. There is one exception coercion.
I might not want to buy the Apple from you, if I can simply
take it by force. My values are still fulfilled.
I must have valued the Apple more than the effort of taking
it from you, but yours are not. You must have valued the Apple
more than the nothing you got in return, or you would have just
given it to me. We are back to the problem of
determining whose values are more important.
In fact, it's worse than that. That if I try to take something
from you, you will resist imposing costs on both of us in
the form of property damage and bodily harm.
In addition to the cost of security, you may incur to
prevent future acts of coercion. It's not just that voluntary
acts potential raise total utility and coercive acts have
no, such tendency coercive acts actually tend to decrease total
utility. Thus, voluntourism gives us a
method of determining who gets what, in a way that maximizes
total utility. If someone appropriates some
unknown piece of property from nature, leave him be.
He has just increased his utility, if he trades that
property with One else, leave them be.
They have both just increased their utility.
If however, he steals her damages, the property of someone
else stop him. He has just reduced total
utility. If we apply these principles of
private ownership and voluntary exchange, consistently, we must
apply them to capital goods which are Goods used to produce
other Goods, tools, machines companies, Etc.
If these Goods could be seized at any moment, then you would
have little reason to produce. M.
Conversely, if you can reliably maintain ownership of capital
goods, you have a profit incentive to produce them, and
sell their output to the world. This is how capitalism the
private ownership of capital goods.
Achieve the unprecedented living standards, we discussed at the
beginning. This isn't to say that the world
we live in now operates entirely on a voluntary basis theft fraud
murder and assault still happen regularly.
In war victimless crime laws and an endless list of other
government. Actions all violate people's
consent every day. Our reasoning tells us that each
of these actions should be expected to reduce.
The total fulfillment of human values.
At least to the extent that you care about human values.
You should attempt to prevent these coercive actions.
In other words, at least to the extent that you are a
utilitarian, you should be a volunteer.
First.