A Praxeological And Ethical Check-In For The Alleged Virtues In Statesmanship

This paper starts from the faith and conviction that the intellectual adventured in the social sciences who is not supported by a logically consistent and naturally realistic (political) “philosophy”, a logically consistent and naturally realistic “ethics”, will enter “unarmed” the arena of scientific knowledge, while he will enter, if interested, the political arena with an entire “rack” of vicious judgments. If praxeology (the pure logic of human action, as developed by L. Von Mises, the “dean” of the modern Austrian School), as the master-matrix of economics, helps us identify “absurd virtues” (that is virtues against the nature and logic of human action), property ethics (as the arguably sole rational ethics, passing simultaneously the Kantian universalisation test and serving to orderly frame the work of society, following the Austrian-libertarian Rothbardian phylogeny acquis) might help us test the alleged plenitude of otherwise good-oriented actions. The ethical test may help to discern between all virtue’s work and its fake work: if “virtues” (e.g., those claimed by the political healers of nations – egalitarianism & Co.) fail the minimal ethical test, meaning if the concrete means used for their exercise are inconsistent comparing to the principle of non-aggression, of noninitiation of violence against a fellow in the City, defined by his own person and property, then, immediately, the alleged “virtue”, purportedly served by it, becomes incomplete, and the moral supporting it becomes lame. If the otherwise praxeologically meaningful virtue of altruism –conceivable, for instance, as democratic charity for those in great need – is preceded by seizure of private property, it cannot remain a true virtue. So, the institutions of political power cannot per se be reliably used for virtue related goals. Those included in the logics of State’s political apparatus, either having been elected as leaders, declared heroes, or proclaimed good intellectuals, cannot be systematically deemed candidates for becoming workers of all virtue, or strong guides, or true masters, in their wish, although righteous and generous, to make the nations, as, once, Benjamin Franklin sincerely told us, “less corrupt and less vicious”.