None of the major political ideologies are particularly consequentialist in the way they approach policy.
Political ideologies are big squishy categories that contain more consequentialist and less consequentialist strains. So I think that’s the wrong way of looking at it.
E.g. amont libertarians, there are those who focus on supposed good consequences of libertarian policies, and those who focus on arguing coercion is always wrong even if it leads to good consequences. And among progressives there are people who are basically as you describe, and people like Matt Yglesias and myself and I think Yvain (I think it’s fair to call Yvain progressive).
Political ideologies are big squishy categories that contain more consequentialist and less consequentialist strains.
I mentioned those strains. But they’re a very small minority—over-represented among wonks, bloggers and people smart enough to be in your social circles—but still small. Yglesias drives people to his left nuts with his stuff. And you and Yvain are not representative progressives for what I think are obvious reasons, right?
You can put me in that category of progressive too (though I like left-libertarian or liberaltarian as well). We should also be skeptical that we are actually progressives for consequentialist reasons and not merely coming up with consequentialist rationalizations for our progressive intuitions. Disagreeing with non-consequentialist liberals seems like a nice start, though.
How small that group is, sort of isn’t the point though. The point is that one dimension along which you differ from many other progressives is whether you look at policy chiefly through a lens of consequences or a lens of oppressor-oppressed. As such it is unsurprising that you find yourself disagreeing with progressive talking points from time to time.
Fair enough. It is true that most people, regardless of their politial ideology, are not consequentialists. But this looks like a case where failing to look at the consequences leads people to say silly things.
Political ideologies are big squishy categories that contain more consequentialist and less consequentialist strains. So I think that’s the wrong way of looking at it.
E.g. amont libertarians, there are those who focus on supposed good consequences of libertarian policies, and those who focus on arguing coercion is always wrong even if it leads to good consequences. And among progressives there are people who are basically as you describe, and people like Matt Yglesias and myself and I think Yvain (I think it’s fair to call Yvain progressive).
I mentioned those strains. But they’re a very small minority—over-represented among wonks, bloggers and people smart enough to be in your social circles—but still small. Yglesias drives people to his left nuts with his stuff. And you and Yvain are not representative progressives for what I think are obvious reasons, right?
You can put me in that category of progressive too (though I like left-libertarian or liberaltarian as well). We should also be skeptical that we are actually progressives for consequentialist reasons and not merely coming up with consequentialist rationalizations for our progressive intuitions. Disagreeing with non-consequentialist liberals seems like a nice start, though.
How small that group is, sort of isn’t the point though. The point is that one dimension along which you differ from many other progressives is whether you look at policy chiefly through a lens of consequences or a lens of oppressor-oppressed. As such it is unsurprising that you find yourself disagreeing with progressive talking points from time to time.
Fair enough. It is true that most people, regardless of their politial ideology, are not consequentialists. But this looks like a case where failing to look at the consequences leads people to say silly things.