In a post responding to the severe criticism David Brooks has received on his own unfortunate column arguing against the legalization of marijuana, T.N., a blogger at The Economist’s “Democracy in America” blog, comes to his defense in “Marijuana Legalisation: Sort of In Defense of David Brooks.” There he argues that while Brooks’ point certainly could have been better argued, that Brooks certainly had a point which is often neglected in the tide of increasing support for legalization.
The most noteworthy part about the blog post, though, does not have to do with the topic of cannabis, or David Brooks. It is that T.N.’s post is paradigmatic of a certain mentality about policy. That mentality is the belief that policy is about a matter of utilitarian calculus. A good piece of legislation is therefore one that encourages the general welfare while a bad piece of legislation, vice versa, is one that diminishes the general welfare. T.N. advocates for such an understanding when in writing:
The point is that however the cost/benefit formula is constructed, there are factors on both sides of the equation. Lives have been ruined by marijuana as well as by its prohibition. It may be facile to lament the legalisation of the drug while ignoring the damage wrought by prohibition, but it is equally silly to assume that there will be no losers from the unprecedented experiments in Colorado and Washington.
According to this view, a politician’s craft is a matter of prudence - defined by Aristotle as being “about human concerns, about things open to deliberation” (Nicomachean Ethics 1141b). When legalizing marijuana, then, politicians have to weigh the benefits of its legalization compared to those of its prohibition, and if those benefits outweigh the costs, then the legislation should be passed.
Completely lacking from T.N.’s account of legislation, though, is any voice for the presumption of liberty. The idea that the prudential decision ought to, by principle, be left to the person who shall serve to reap the decision’s fruit is not be to found there. Nowhere in T.N.’s appraisal of legalization does the columnist seem to consider the idea that people ought to be free to destroy themselves. Instead, politicians stand above their citizens, to ensure their happiness. When the columnist addresses the choices of individuals, it is only with respect to either minimizing or maximizing their utility: “Moreover, lots of people smoke marijuana because they like it; the drug therefore has a ‘utility function’ that ought to be factored in to any cost/benefit analysis.”
That is a dim view of human free will. A cost/benefit analysis from on high simply looking at people as utility maximizers fails to capture the full tapestry of human motivations across society, and it fails to consider the multiplicity of motivations for why people would make their own prudential choices. The presumption of liberty, though, acknowledges that, and in acknowledging it, respects human beings as free to their own prudence lest a grave concern overwhelm that presumption.
The presumption of liberty alone, not the politician’s prudence, should be the reason for the legalization of cannabis. It is not that marijuana does no more harm than alcohol, or that marijuana might even have positive effects across societies, but that people should be given the respect that they deserve, and that no one should claim to make the prudential decision to partake in drugs for them. There is simply no scope for a superior in politics to interfere with that decision, and so there is no reason why politicians need to deliberate about it. It simply should not be their decision to make.
Humanity is, at heart, a species with a deep impulse towards self-destruction, and if someone desires it, he will be able to achieve it through one means or another. Talk about the political prudence of legalizing marijuana does nothing to address that. Prudence is a matter of proper deliberation, but there is no strong reason for why the choice of whether to smoke marijuana should not be made by politicians, especially when it comes to the well being of individuals.
The fact shall always remain that if people are to be free to choose virtue, they must be free to choose vice. Whether it is the case of the problem of evil or the legalization of drugs, people are free agents whom need to be respected as free agents. Ensuring the integrity of what Adam Smith called “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty” which liberals should be the primary concern of politicians, matters of prudential legislation only following after that. As far as the legalization of marijuana, it would be one small way forward towards ensuring the existence of that system of liberty. It isn’t for no reason that The Economist named Uruguay its country of 2013 for enacting such an “obviously sensible” change.
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