On the Island, Politics, and the Election

Losing the Trees for the Forest

The Election

An important election is coming up between former President of the United States Donald J. Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Many believe it to be the most significant and critical election in a generation or more. They may well be right. But what is a successful outcome and why? What principles or ideas can lead one versus the other to better promote and protect the Constitution of the United States and our founding principles?

It’s impossible to even guess at the answer to that question if we don’t know what principles, values, and virtues lead to success for human beings and why.

With that in mind, I will share a perspective on just that topic.

Isolating the Variables

I find it useful to try and isolate complex issues down to their most essential elements. In the case of society that means the individual. When you look at a country of 345 million people, or a planet of 8 billion, it’s easy to “lose the trees for the forest” (to invert a common idiom).

Human beings are human beings, whether alone or in a group. When in a group, there are opportunities and threats with your fellow man that may not exist when alone, but you are no less human. Your nature remains unchanged whether alone or in society.

In an effort to study and understand the human condition, the science of philosophy has evolved.

There are several branches of philosophy. The four most people think of, whether they know it or not, are:

1) Metaphysics—What is the nature of reality?

2) Epistemology—How do we know what we know?

3) Ethics—What code of values should guide a person’s choices and actions?

4) Politics—Given the first three, how do we all get along in a social context?

The first three are clear to apply if you find yourself alone on a deserted island. What’s interesting is that, while alone on that island, every single human being will inevitably adopt the exact same set of values, whether they are Christian, Muslim, atheist, black, white, or brown.

For the first three above, let’s consider how every single person on earth would assess these in their island castaway experience.

What is the nature of reality? (Metaphysics)

Every person would come to the same conclusion: reality is objective. In other words, the physical reality around you is undeniable. If you don’t take action, bad things will happen such as dying of thirst, starvation, or exposure.  There isn’t “your reality” or “my reality,” and your opinion about it is irrelevant. Reality does not care. It is immutable. Unchanging. Now, you could attempt to deny reality, lie down on the sandy beach, throw a fit, and demand food, water, and shelter.  At some point, you will get hungry and yield to the objective nature and facts of reality and take action to sustain yourself or lie there and die. In either case, reality is objective, unchanging, and quite real. If you deny the objective nature of reality, you will die. That fact will make us all “objectivists” and not “subjectivists.”

How do we know what we know? (Epistemology)

Assuming you’ve accepted the unchanging facts of reality and are getting busy with the business of survival, how do you know what to do? You could ask your feelings, but they aren’t going to tell you how to fish or build a shelter. What you are going to do is apply your mind to the situation to process the information from your senses, assess your options, and try to figure out—reason out—how to do the things you need to do to secure your life. Reason is your tool of survival. A religious person might say they will pray and God will save them. First, I have no doubt in such a castaway scenario there will be plenty of praying! And it may well have the benefit of comfort and hope—very important for surviving in such a situation. However, it will not lead you to knowing how to make a net, or a fishing line, or a spear, and so on. That will be the result of applying your mind to the circumstances to develop solutions to your problem. Only reason will allow you to prevail in these areas. Without it, you will die. That fact will make us all logicians in chief on our island.

What code of values should guide a person’s choices and actions? (Ethics)

As you assess your situation, what actions will you take and why?  Per the above, you would apply your mind to the circumstances and reason out solutions to your very real predicament. The thing that is clearly implied in those efforts is that you are acting in your own selfish interests. You value your life and want to preserve it. That value of your life is what guides your actions. That takes self-interested, goal-directed actions. Without them, you die. We will all be rationally self interested. It’s also conceivable you could be irrationally self interested (glutenous, lazy, self-entitled) . But that would not preserve your life. It would be, well, irrational. It would compromise your situation and you would die.

Reality, Reason, and Self-Interest

Acknowledging reality, applying reason to understand it, and self-interest to preserve ourselves, are fundamental requirements of our nature as human beings. This nature cannot be changed because reality cannot be changed. This is a good thing. If reality could change, if it were “subjective,” there would be no certainty, there would be no truth, and it would be impossible to know how to function. We would not know if a wheel should be round or square. Thankfully, reality and everything in it, including humans, has a specific, unchanging nature.

How do we all get along in a social context? (Politics)

That is the question of Politics. Given what we know from above—reality is objective, reason is our most important tool of survival, and self-interest is essential for human beings—what happens when we aren’t on the island and find ourselves in a nation of 345 million people?

When in a social context, not a single thing we explored above changes, because human nature doesn’t change. Reality, reason, and self-interest remain essential, because a human being is a human being is a human being. What changes is acknowledging that, given human nature requires these things for success, we must figure out how to preserve them while we all figure out how to get along with each other.  We must respect the equal right of others to these same things: To ownership of their own life, to be free from interference from others, and to pursue their own self-interest to the best of their ability—while respecting the equal right of others to do the same.

Such a society requires respect for individual liberty and respect for property rights. Property rights reflect the right to sustain yourself. If the product of your effort isn’t protected—property rights—you have no ability to sustain yourself and are at the mercy of the whims of others. This has been the case throughout history and why so many millions have fled to the United States where property rights are protected. It makes life possible. When you figure out how to make a fishing net on the island, it’s yours. It’s your property. If someone could simply seize it from you, sustaining your life would become much more difficult or even impossible. There is no liberty without property. There is no humanity without property.

The sole function of legitimate politics is to figure out how to protect individual liberty and property rights. How to practice a proper metaphysics (Objective Reality), epistemology (Reason), and ethics (Self Interest) in a social context. It’s what a successful human existence requires. There may be many ways to do so, the United States has attempted to do this through a constitutionally limited government dedicated to protecting individual rights. By historical standards, it has been a tremendous success and why so many have sought refuge in the U.S.A.

 The basis on which to judge any political system—and any politician—is to the extent to which it/they protects individual liberty—otherwise, it is just someone stealing your fishing net and leaving you hungry.

Morality

Each of the above tenets—Reality, Reason, and Self-Interest—reflect a proper human morality. Each of them live in context with the other. Self-interest cannot be assessed without reality or reason, for example. It’s also why stealing and killing are “immoral”; because they reflect a violation of individual liberty and property rights which are fundamental requirements of a successful human existence.

In a social context, freedom is called “capitalism.” Capitalism is just morality in a social context. It could be called “freedomism” or “libertyism” or any number of things, but only capitalism reflects the requirements of a truly human nature, so only capitalism is a moral expression of that nature in a social context.

These broad principles of objective reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism also tell us the essential virtues of successful human life: Rationality, reason, justice, honesty, integrity, pride, and productive work.

I’ll touch on three of the above in detail:

Rationality is most easily understood as simply acknowledging the nature of reality, as relayed to you by your senses and the use of reason. It would be “irrational” to deny the nature of gravity and step off a 50^th floor roof and expect to live.

Justice means getting what you deserve, and you deserve what you earn. Individual rights and property rights are the foundation of justice.

Productive work is essential to human flourishing. It may be the king of all virtues (though hard to implement without reason and rationality) as without work, there is no life. You die of hunger, thirst, and exposure, just like on the island. Healthy societies and individuals value work and accomplishment.

Civic Virtues

I don’t expand on what would be called “civic virtues” which are also a part of us all getting along.

The National Constitution Center[1] defines them as

“…the character of a good participant in a system of government —the personal qualities associated with the effective functioning of the civil and political order or the preservation of its values and principles. According to White, the Founders designed the American republic with those qualities in mind and believed they were essential to upholding it.”

As implied by the above, those “values and principles” are key. For example, are we voting for representatives in a limited government that exists to protect the principles we discussed above? Or are we electing representatives to do whatever they want without regard to any principles, empowered to do whatever they want as long as they can get a majority vote? The difference is essential.

What are typically called civil liberties, which as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc. also fall into public virtue and have social implications, but are essentially about protecting individual liberty.

I also recommend searching out Dr. Thomas Krannawitter on substack who does an excellent job discussing civic virtue.

So What About the Election?

If you followed the above, you may well conclude that neither candidate is likely to deliver either “Bigly” or “Joyfully” on protecting these essential human values and virtues. Your task is to figure out which one is more likely to either do more to protect them or less to damage them. Who will protect property rights and free speech? Who will base policy on reality and not fantasy? Who will protect your freedom to choose for your own life rather than have it chosen for you? It’s not an easy calculus. Perhaps made even more difficult, and desirably so, in a system with a separation of powers and checks and balances.

Good luck. Think Well. Vote Well.

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[1] Civic Virtue, and Why It Matters | Constitution Center