Reason has a debate about whether libertarians should “care about cultural values.” Kerry Howley argues that libertarians should place far more emphasis on combating cultures that supposedly undermine freedom, while her critics (Todd Seavey and Daniel McCarthy), are skeptical.
To my mind, there is no question that libertarians should care about some cultural values. However, Kerry’s argument could benefit from greater precision on several key issues. First, some cultural issues might well be an appropriate object of concern for libertarians as thinking individuals, but not a proper focus for libertarianism - which is, after all, a political ideology, not a comprehensive guide to the good life. Second, it is not clear what is meant by cultural values that restrict freedom. Finally, Kerry may underrate the extent to which there is no single set of cultural norms that is optimal for all people. There are both normative and tactical reasons for libertarians to avoid taking definitive positions on more than a limited number of cultural issues.
I. Individual Libertarians May have Good Reason to Care about Issues that are not a Proper Focus of Libertarianism.
One of the most important values issues that libertarians — and everyone else — should properly care about is the question of whether God exists and, if so, what he commands us to do. However, as a political ideology, libertarianism need not take any position on the issue of God’s existence and the meaning of his commands (if any). Not only is this good political strategy, it also shows proper respect for the limits of what a political ideology can accomplish. Rather, the political ideology of libertarianism should focus on the ways in which strictly limiting the power of government can make adherents of many different faiths better off by allowing each to live by their own values without fear of repression by the others.
The same point applies to many nonreligious cultural disputes. For example, people often face tradeoffs between work and commitments to their family, friends, and communities. Individual libertarians quite properly have strong opinions on this issue. But libertarianism as a political ideology need not go beyond the argument that such conflicts are likely to be better addressed by private sector institutions and civil society than by government.
II. Which Cultural Values Restrict Freedom?
Kerry argues that libertarians should oppose cultural values that undermine freedom. It is hard to disagree with that in the abstract. The difficult part is determining which values those are.
Kerry claims that most libertarians assume that “social pathologies such as patriarchy and nationalism are not the proper concerns of the individualist.” In reality, numerous libertarians such as Adam Smith, Richard Cobden, and F.A. Hayek have harshly criticized nationalism for at least the last 200 years — largely because they recognized the close connection between nationalism, statism, and war. The same could be said with respect to patriarchy, which libertarians such as William Lloyd Garrison and Herbert Spencer, criticized back in the 19th century long before it became common to do so, on the grounds that it causes indefensible state-sponsored restrictions on the freedom of women. Today, few libertarians would deny that some cultural values are a proper object of libertarian criticism because they tend to promote government-sponsored restrictions on liberty. Libertarians would also condemn cultural values that justify aggressive uses of private force, such as, for example, sexism that promotes violence against women.
However, Kerry wants libertarians to go beyond this and focus on cultural values that supposedly undermine freedom even without any connection to state power or private violence. As she puts it, “Not every threat to liberty is backed by a government gun. Convention creates boundaries as thick as any border wall and ubiquitous as any surveillance state.”
This claim proves too much. Almost any cultural norm restricts people’s options to some extent in the sense that violators might face social pressure to conform, or that people might internalize the norm to such an extent that they don’t even consider the possibility of going against it. On the other hand, social conventions also increase personal freedom by enabling to people to cooperate in ways that might otherwise be difficult or impossible and to form communities that reflect their values.
Nonetheless, Kerry is probably right to suggest that some extremely restrictive social norms can radically reduce people’s choices and greatly diminish their freedom. However, I think that this problem is unlikely to be a serious one in a modern liberal society that has many different cultures and social institutions. People who feel dissatisfied or restricted by the social norms of their communities can seek out alternative social groups. In the modern United States, any large metropolitan area has an enormous range of subcultures to choose from. Even if you live in a relatively isolated rural area, you can still “vote with your feet” and move elsewhere, as most of the rural population has actually done over the last century. So long as people have exit rights in a liberal society, they are unlikely to be trapped in a set of restrictive social norms that radically constrict their freedom — unless of course they prefer it.
At some points, Kerry implies that people who follow highly traditionalistic lifestyles — especially women in patriarchal subcultures — might nonetheless be trapped without any meaningful possibility of exit. This is a genuine problem in backward societies with little education and mobility. But I’m skeptical that it is true to any great extent in the US or other advanced industrialized nations. Most American cultural traditionalists are well aware of the existence of alternative, more progressive cultures. Indeed, most live near people who adhere to them. If they nonetheless stick to their traditional values, it is unlikely to be because they have no choice. Indeed, the existence of a variety of different subcultures actually increases individual freedom, by giving people more lifestyle options to choose from.
For these reasons, libertarians have good reason to fear state-imposed cultural norms more than privately developed ones. The state can use its monopoly of force to compel all of society to adhere to a single set of norms, including dissenters who prefer a different vision. It is far more difficult for private institutions to do so.
III. Libertarianism and the Case for Cultural Diversity.
Ultimately, the difference between Kerry and her critics may come down to differences over the extent to which libertarians should support cultural diversity. In my view, there is no one set of cultural norms that is best for everyone. I would not want to live under highly traditionalistic norms like those of Mormons or Orthodox Jews. However, it is quite possible that adherence to those norms might provide a happy life for people whose preferences are very different from mine. I have met a number of highly educated people from both of these groups who seem to be very happy with their lives, and are fully aware of the available alternatives. It’s hard to conclude that their lifestyle choices are necessarily more misguided than Kerry’s or mine. Traditionalistic subcultures have much to offer people who are highly risk-averse, those who greatly value a strong sense of community, and those who prize stability, among others.
Kerry writes that she favors “A culture of liberty [that] would . . . beget [a] raucous, plenitudinous hodgepodge” of different subcultures. To that extent, we agree. However, she also argues that we must combat “authoritarian cultures” that restrict freedom, by which she seems to mean primarily socially conservative ones. This suspicion of traditionalistic cultures is understandable. For much of human history, state power forcibly imposed various traditional values on women, religious dissenters, and others. As discussed above, libertarians should fight against those elements of traditional culture that still seek to use coercion to impose conservative norms on the unwilling. I have often criticized these aspects of social conservatism myself (e.g. — here and here). The same goes for the statist authoritarian elements of left-wing political correctness. But it is a mistake to conclude that just because socially conservative cultural norms shouldn’t be imposed on everyone, that means that they shouldn’t be voluntarily followed by anyone. In addition to giving individuals a wider range of options at any given point in time, the existence of both liberal and socially conservative also fosters competition between norms that promotes the emergence of better norms over time.
These points are distinct from Todd Seavey’s tactical argument in his critique of Kerry, where he points out that identification with one set of cultural values is likely to drive away potential allies for libertarianism. If libertarians are seen as aligned with cultural liberalism, it is likely to alienate cultural conservatives, and vice versa. Linking libertarianism to a narrow cultural agenda would be a mistake similar to Ayn Rand’s insistence that libertarianism entails atheism — a stance that did much to alienate potential supporters who were religious. At the same time, cultural “wedge issues” sometimes do make for good political strategy.
Be that as it may, I am not merely arguing that libertarians should support cultural diversity for tactical reasons. Rather, they should do it because it is genuinely the right thing to do. We cannot endorse all cultures completely. Libertarianism is still at odds with cultural values that promote statism or the aggressive use of private violence. And individual libertarians can certainly work to advance their particular religious and moral values. But as a political ideology, libertarianism should celebrate diversity.
UPDATE: I suppose I should mention that I refer to Kerry Howley by her first name because she and I are friends in the real world outside cyberspace (and hopefully still will be after she reads this post:)), whereas I am not similarly acquainted with the other writers in the Reason debate and therefore I refer to them more formally. Blogosphere norms about the use of first names vs. last names are constantly evolving, so it is not always easy to determine what is appropriate and what isn’t. This is, perhaps, one of those areas where decentralized cultural evolution can generate better social norms over time.
Curious Reader says:
Let me summarize Ilya’s argument as I see it: Libertarianism should respect the decisional autonomy of all individuals. A pluralistic libertarianism is better than one critical of social conventions. A critical libertarianism that discounts the potential benefit of social conventions may be unjustified, especially if those social conventions have neither been created by the state nor result in private violence. A critical libertarianism might further be unnecessary in our society: one can join a subculture where one’s views are accepted rather than remain in an intolerant one. Traditional women who submit to patriarchal values are an improper concern for libertarianism, as those women choose to remain in traditionalist subcultures. Their exercise of liberty to live in a patriarchal enclave is a perfect example of what libertarianism should protect. Of course, as a matter of principle, libertarianism should oppose the authoritarian imposition of a unitary viewpoint. But preventing traditionalists from forming their own enclaves does not advance such a principle. A pluralistic libertarianism would permit individuals the decisional autonomy to join voluntarily the cultural subgroups they preferred.
I agree.
Kerry’s view is a feminist one. She dislikes patriarchy. Patriarchy always encroaches on liberty. Freely chosen patriarchy cannot exist, because all patriarchy is imposed. Therefore, eliminating patriarchy to any extent promotes liberty and autonomy, and any defense of patriarchy is either a self-interested defense of totalitarianism or results from the false-consciousness of a subjugated woman. The “social construction of gender” is just as evil as the absence of free markets and free speech. The problem with this view is that it ignores an obvious counterpoint: racism. The “social construction of race” has been a problem (e.g., the legal institution of slavery) and is indisputably a proper concern of libertarianism. A libertarianism that promotes slavery is no libertarianism at all. Yet if we compare the social construction of race and gender, it should be apparent that while many mothers have different views on how to raise their kids, how to balance work and family life, and how to manage their domestic affairs, no one wants to be enslaved because of her skin color. Even if libertarianism ought not to be pluralistic, it is unclear why the social construction of gender even rises to the level of a proper concern of libertarianism at all. The range of opinions amongst women on the matter ought to place the burden on Kerry to show why libertarianism should care. All she has proven with her piece is that she cares.
I do not.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:08 amDavid Nieporent says:
When I read this piece in the mag, I came away thinking that Seavey’s strongest argument was one he made towards the end: “Thinkers who (however accurately) point out that morality is more than just the market have a tendency to favor regimes that leave us with less than a market.”
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:09 amStating the obvious says:
But I’m skeptical that it is true to any great extent in the US or other advanced industrialized nations. Most American cultural traditionalists are well aware of the existence of alternative, more progressive cultures. Indeed, most live near people who adhere to them. If they nonetheless stick to their traditional values, it is unlikely to be because they have no choice. Indeed, the existence of a variety of different subcultures actually increases individual freedom, by giving people more lifestyle options to choose from.
So as long as it not a problem to a “great extent”, libertarian theory can ignore the problem. And I thought libertarian theory worked everywhere, even less advanced and industrialized nations? You seem to be admitting that lack of choice might be a problem in those cultures, yet you are dismissing the problem completely.
Even in our advanced, industrial society the abuse in some isolated communities, as evidenced by the revelations of what goes on in some Mormon sects has revealed, is a significant problem. Are you willing to dismiss these issues just because they don’t meet your “great extent” threshold.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:40 amTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Libertarianism and Culture -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Christine Brandt, Irena Schneider. Irena Schneider said: The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Libertarianism and Culture http://bit.ly/2F6xte [...]
The oldest libertarian debate « Muse Free says:
[...] But anyway, those who aren’t steeped in this subject too thoroughly should really read the Reason article; Howley, Seavey and McCarthy are all fine writers, and they make all the points worth making. Also you may wish to glance at Ilya Somin’s take on the issue. [...]
John Thacker says:
I disagree. Libertarianism leads to the type of advanced and industrialized nations that, so far, inevitably increase choice. Classical liberalism allows the private sphere to exist outside the state, and allows social norms to evolve naturally rather than be fixed by the state. If believing in evolution in the free market or the biological world is possible, why not believing in evolution of social norms? Libertarians also stresses freedom of movement far more than other political systems, another way of allowing people to escape and choose social norms for themselves. In other words, Ilya’s point is that in a libertarian society, the negative impact of social norms is much reduced compared to a non-libertarian society.
Kerry Howley does indeed try to prove too much. It is true that any norm or convention can feel binding to someone. But it applies overbroadly, to nearly anything, even attempts to create norms that increase liberty. We wish to encourage girls to play sports, so that none feel discouraged. But surely our new social norm of encouraging sports equality means that tall girls are repeatedly asked if they play basketball, which can be annoying, or encouraged to play sports, perhaps when they don’t want to. A ridiculous example? In some sense, but in the same way that pretending that any sort of social pressure coming from convention is equivalent to coercion. A girl who perhaps would have preferred to go into a particular field but encouraged into another by those who wish to equalize the number of males and females in various fields is in some sense pressured by a new social norm favored by Kerry at the same time as she is given relief from the pressures of an old social norm.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 9:05 amDavid says:
Unless you are a political dogmatist (yeah. libertarians, I’m looking at you!), you are going to have a mix of libertarian and non-libertarian elements in your thinking and acting.
I have many friends who are devout, practicing Christians. They follow what they believe to be the scriptural model for family relations, which include subordinating the wife to the husband (which is not to say that the wives are passive Stepford ones...far from it). Yet, these folks also homeschool their kids, and many are involved in legal and political activism to broaden school choice.
ISTM that libertarianism needs to be a (you’ll forgive the expression) broad enough church that there’s room for these folks: if not, libertarianism will never advance beyond a tiny fringe movement.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 9:16 amRandy says:
Indeed, not everyone *wants* all these freedoms. Some women are perfectly happy to be subordinate. (Heck, lots of people don’t bother voting in elections). Some people want to be told what to do and lack any independent streak. There ought to be room for those people too.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 10:00 amyankee says:
This argument also proves too much. Consider the obvious example of gays and lesbians. Until very recently, gays and lesbians suffered from enormous social stigma in the broader culture and virtually every subculture. If you were found out, you were subject to being ostracized, fired, denied housing, and so forth. The only way to avoid this was to cut yourself off from all of your social connections, move to San Francisco, find a job in a gay-owned business, and restrict your social life to the gay subculture. The only reason things have changed is because activists devoted themselves to convincing people that those norms were bad.
Is it your contention that these norms did not constitute a significant restriction on freedom, and that libertarian organizations should have refrained from criticizing them? Sure, libertarians would have opposed the anti-sodomy laws, but there’s a big difference between “perverts should not be punished for their perversions so long as they don’t hurt anyone else” and “gays and lesbians are people whose sexual orientation should be respected.”
Quote
October 24, 2009, 10:23 amanomdebus says:
Howley’s argument does in some ways seem to take a purist approach, where all aspects need to be just so and if you don’t agree you are supporting their enemies even if not deliberately.
I don’t believe that libertarian ideas are established well enough in the public consciousness to allow for a purist approach. In the same way that within existing libertarian platform there are certain issues that are emphasized over others,not necessarily because they are more essential, but because they seem to be achievable. We are not in danger of taking over any time soon, and even if we did would not be a permanent condition. Politics being what it is, you shouldn’t expect a pure anything to come of it, even if somehow you managed to keep the purity of the message up to that point.
I don’t think this should be a platform issue, however, there is nothing wrong with individual candidates expounding on social issues. One, it is similar in form to limited federalism where more local delegation allows for better adaptation to local norms. Two, to give an idea of the diversity of opinion that exists amongst libertarians.
In this way, there is no unified libertarian campaign that is supposed to work in any and all situations. The problems in some areas of the world start with unequal protection of law, which is not compatible with libertarianism.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 10:26 amOren says:
Because there is a distinction between a set of social values that are conceived of as being superior choices, and ones that conceive that individual choice in the matter is, itself, evil — independently of the choice being made. For instance, many thoughtful conservatives preach against the culture of sexual excess and encourage the youth to be more chaste. This seems to me to be obviously quite different than conservatives that argue against sexual liberty itself — the former think the world would be better if people chose differently, the latter think the world would be better if people didn’t have any choice in the matter to begin with.
I cannot reconcile the latter type of thought with (my) libertarianism. A social construction whose core teaching is that humans are not competent to make these choices (and hence we’d be better of if they weren’t free to make them) seems to me utter incompatible with the libertarian construction that argues the exact opposite — that only the individual is competent to make choices about his own life.
Of course, people are free to hold these quintessentially anti-libertarian social views, but I don’t see any reason that I ought to stifle my criticism of them on “pluralistic” grounds.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:01 amDavid Bernstein says:
Excellent post, Ilya. Yankee has a point, but I think it’s answered with “this is an appropriate concern for thinking people, including individual libertarians, but not a concern for libertarianism, as such.”
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:08 amrpt says:
Of course, whether God actually exists in reality—at least the Christian view—makes all the difference. This approach assumes as a fact that there is no God.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:16 amDavid Nieporent says:
It’s my contention that libertarians should not have criticized them as libertarians. As individuals, sure. But not on behalf of libertarianism.
I feel the same way as I do when some public figure says or does something racist or anti-semitic, and Congress rushes to pass a resolution condemning that person. I think members of Congress should indeed criticize this person, as individuals. But I don’t think Congress ought to be in the business of formally condemning speech. I don’t think professional organizations such as the ABA or AMA should go around criticizing the war in Iraq or the destruction of the rainforest. either, as they’re wont to do.
Here’s the problem: what if a libertarian happens to be strongly anti-gay, the way I feel about Yankees fans? He doesn’t want to be friends with gays, doesn’t want to work with gays, doesn’t want to associate with gays. He just genuinely doesn’t like them — perhaps irrationally, but nonetheless. But at the same time, he wants to abolish all governmental sanctions against, or discrimination towards, gays. Kerry wants to say that libertarians should denounce him and say that he isn’t really a libertarian at all, apparently. But he is.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:16 amSean O'Hara says:
Howley has identified one of the major problems that prevents libertarians from gaining wide-spread acceptance — it allows behaviors that make people uncomfortable if they don’t find them outright anathematic. I’ve met many liberals who argue that if libertarians were in charge, there’d still be segregated buses and lunch-counters — and indeed that libertarianism is nothing more than cryptoracism. This is at least as much a tactical problem as close alignment with any set of cultural values.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:31 amOren says:
David, the man in your hypothetical might be a political libertarian but he does not, apparently, believe (completely) in the core hypothesis of libertarianism: that if an individual wants and chooses to be gay, that gayness is a net positive for all of society.
In my conception, anyway, a libertarian cannot be “strongly anti-gay” in the sense you have described. They can think that gayness is suboptimal lifestyle choice, sure, but they cannot be against the person for having chosen in a manner that disagrees with their judgment. In other words, there is still this manifest difference between assigning value to different outcomes in one’s own mind and assigning those values as applied to others’ lives.
To sum it up briefly, I think libertarianism commits itself to a weak form of cultural relativism, at least insofar as we ought not to conflate judgment of outcomes with condemnation of the choice itself.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:33 amMatt says:
It’s a minor point, not deeply related to your argument (except that you try to get rhetorical traction from it, I guess) but Adam Smith (and, to some degree, Hayek) is not plausibly thought of as a libertarian. Sure, he has some ideas that have some similarity with modern libertarianism, but many that conflicted with it as well, and his ideas, developed as they were just at the start of liberalism, are not easily put into modern categories. Attempting to do so always ignores important elements and falsifies the view. I know there’s a strong desire to say, “Adam Smith is on our team!”, but it’s not plausibly so, and so shouldn’t be said. (I think that Hayek is also not rightly thought of as a libertarian if that’s a distinct view, but it’s a closer case, at least.)
Quote
October 24, 2009, 12:00 pmLN says:
Face it, everybody loves freedom but virtually no one even attempts to elevate freedom to a supreme principle. This issue is well-explored in an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that can currently be viewed here on Hulu.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 12:00 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » ILYA SOMIN on Libertarianism and Culture…. says:
[...] ILYA SOMIN on Libertarianism and Culture. [...]
David Nieporent says:
I don’t think there’s any such tenet of libertarianism. Libertarianism does not require social tolerance; just political tolerance. It does not require a belief that all choices are positive ones — just that, unless they harm others, there’s no objective basis for forbidding them.
I would disagree. And if it did, you’d have the same problem that cultural relativism always provides: why gayness and not racism?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 12:54 pmLarryA says:
Well, not quite. Libertarianism isn’t about what you believe, it’s about what you think government should do about it.
I have no problem with being gay, but there are other lifestyles out there that turn my stomach. I believe that these lifestyles are not a net positive for society. Several forms of addiction spring to mind. I can, within the philosophy of libertarianism, criticize these choices harshly.
But today’s liberals (Democrats) and conservatives (Republicans) go a step further. They believe the government should correct anything they disapprove of.
The libertarian difference is that we distinguish between believing that a choice is wrong, and believing that there should be a law regulating it. To me, libertarianism is best explained as a practical approach to politics. Given the history of government it should be obvious that prohibition is almost always a cure that ends up being worse than the disease it tries to prevent.
One has to look no further than the war on drugs.
OTOH I think you have a point, in that libertarians tend to be much more tolerant of different lifestyles than today’s liberals and conservatives.
(Quibble: I don’t think individuals “want or choose” to be gay, any more than they “want or choose” to be left-handed.)
Quote
October 24, 2009, 12:59 pmDoc Merlin says:
In a libertarian country, since there is so little government control, people have to control themselves and be responsible for their own actions. In that way, culture becomes even more important in a libertarian country than in a statist one.
I am and have been a libertarian for a very long time. However, I am also a Christian and very conservative morally. I care about morality and about rightness of behavior, at the same time as I care about actions not initiating force.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:02 pmDoc Merlin says:
I have to strongly agree with you here. People try to conflate libertarianism and being universally accepting. Libertarians don’t have to be accepting, we just have to not try to initiate force against others.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:06 pmCurious Reader says:
I do not see ow this is relevant to my post, which included the following, right before the sentence you pluck out of context: “[I]f we com pare the social con struc tion of race and gen der, it should be appar ent that while many moth ers have dif fer ent views on how to raise their kids, how to bal ance work and fam ily life, and how to man age their domes tic affairs, no one wants to be enslaved because of her skin color.”
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:14 pmChrisTS says:
LarryA:
This seems correct to me, as a political philosopher. Mill, for example, was clearly a moral objectivist; nonetheless, he thought individuals should be left largely to their own [self-regarding] choices.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:16 pmSuperSkeptic says:
People who feel dissatisfied or restricted by the social norms of their communities can seek out alternative social groups. In the modern United States, any large metropolitan area has an enormous range of subcultures to choose from. Even if you live in a relatively isolated rural area, you can still “vote with your feet” and move elsewhere, as most of the rural population has actually done over the last century. So long as people have exit rights in a liberal society, they are unlikely to be trapped in a set of restrictive social norms that radically constrict their freedom — unless of course they prefer it.
I’m just so tired of this argument. Maybe it’s simply because I grew up poor (I’d like to think it’s because I have access to reality), but most people do not just up and leave when they are faced with a socially repressive norm. A lot of that is obviously because of money, and some of it has to do with family nearby, etc. If voting with your feet is so plausible, then why do hundreds of thousands of people remain mired in neighborhoods plagued with criminality? The argument is overblown and unpersuasive.
Moreoever, to imply at the close that not to vote with one’s feet amounts to a tacit preference for the repressive social norm is inconsiderate; it also plays right into Ms. Howley’s argument that libertarians don’t get it or don’t care — she may be overconcerned with feminism, like a commenter suggests, but libertarianism per se has a problem with determining just how “voluntary” a teenager’s presence is on a ranch in texas or utah, despite the lack of state action.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:16 pmChrisTS says:
This intra-libertarian debate is much like that between what Rawlsians term political liberals and comprehensive liberals.
The former insist on a ‘political-only’ liberalism grounded in a very thin conception of liberal values, whereas the latter seek to promote the value of autonomy where it conflicts with cultural norms or preferences.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:20 pmTwirlip says:
Sure. The challenge is to demonstrate that this is a good, or bad, thing.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:27 pmTwirlip says:
That’s a problem with libertarianism, to be sure, but the solution lies in reconsidering your premises. Certain strands of libertarian thought lend themselves well to the notion of a totaliarian state which forces everybody to be equally “free”.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:31 pmOren says:
Maybe I wasn’t clear. It doesn’t require a belief that all choices are positive ones. It does (IMO, obviously YMMV), however, require a belief that person A choosing choice X is correct if A believes X is positive irrespective of my personal belief that X is negative.
IOW, even though I think Coke is better than Pepsi, I believe it is optimal that people that prefer Pepsi should drink it irrespective of my belief. That is, there’s a distinction between my disapproval of Pepsi and the stronger statement that my disapproval is meaningful outside the domain of my personal preference.
The same logic applies to homosexuality — your hypothetical libertarian might disapprove of the choice to be homosexual, but he should still be committed to the idea that people that think homosexuality is right for them ought to be homosexuals. That is, he ought to admit that his opinion on homosexuality is not relevant to other people’s choices*. Maybe the right term isn’t “weak cultural relativism” but rather some form of dogmatic humility.
At least for myself, I believe that people doing what they think is best is an intrinsic good, even in such cases where their judgment is in conflict with mine. In addition (but independently), I believe that maximizes the relevant measure of personal utility.
* Except, of course, insofar as his logic is sufficient to persuade them by force of reason.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:39 pmTwirlip says:
I think you could say that they are not libertarians in the current sense of the word, which has undergone considerable shifts over time.
In the same vein many libertarians like to claim that they are “classical liberals”, which is clearly not the case. The actual liberals of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries had very little in common with modern Rand-style libertarianism, whether the topic is social policy or economics.
Albert Jay Nock was considered a libertarian at one stage, but not so much any more.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:40 pmOren says:
Who said not racism? I disapprove of racism in that I think it’s suboptimal. My judgment of the utility of tolerance, however, does not make it optimal for everyone everywhere.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:42 pmTwirlip says:
No, it does not. Libertarianism offers no mechanism for saying that either person A or person B is “correct”. If person B does not want to hire person A because A is a homosexual, libertarianism says that person B has that right, which is not quite the same thing is being “correct”.
And if all the people in Sometown USA prefer not to hire gays, then either gays there will have to be closeted or they will have to move elsewhere.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:46 pmOren says:
To me, it’s more expansive. It’s a positive statement about the non-existence of an objective metric for utility. That is, it’s the value judgment that what person A says is good for A is, by definition, good for person A. No other person is entitled, then, to define for that person what constitutes his personal utility (in the ancient Greek terminology, no one can tell another person what constitutes the ‘good life’).
I’m glad we had this thread though, it crystalized for me exactly the underlying nature of how differing views of libertarianism can collide.
I agree, they are not net positive for society. Our judgment, however, is insufficient to declare that objectively they aren’t good for the people that freely chose them.
Again, once you reject an objective interpretation of utility or value, libertarianism falls out naturally because there is obviously not other way to maximize utility that can only be judged personally except by letting the individual decide.
I identify the root cause of that government intervention as the belief in an objective analysis of utility and value. If we accepted that there is no such thing — that utility and value are always subjective — then no one could ever make an argument for any sort of prohibition at all (save for harming others, as usual).
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:48 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Well what would you call him today? And what strand(s) of libertarianism do you consider totalitarian, as an example?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:50 pmTwirlip says:
But what if “what they think best” is shunning gays (or insert the name of some other group of people).
Should he be committed to the idea that people who think homosexuality is wrong ought to be homophobes?
You want freedom to result in a certain specific outcome, and by definiton it can never do that.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:52 pmOren says:
You seem to have been thinking I was talking about Libertarianism as some atomic whole. I was talking about my opinion on what it requires as a matter of philosophical justification.
At the heart of the matter, I require something more than a practical political position to justify something of this scale. There has to be a larger underlying philosophical reason why A’s opinion about A’s personal affairs is more important than B’s opinion about A’s personal affairs — larger than simply “letting B decide about A’s life doesn’t work well in practice”. Without a larger ontology, libertarianism seems to me ungrounded.
Substantively, then, I think libertarianism has to take a position on whether A or B is correct when they are talking about whether A should be or hire gays. Specifically, they should contend that B’s opinion about A’s practices are not relevant.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:54 pmJeffersonian says:
Kerry Howley’s brand of libertarianism, it seems to me, borders on bolshevism. If she wants to promote her agenda, then do so within the marketplace of ideas. If she wants the women living in socially conservative subcultures to leave, then leaflet them or otherwise communicate your ideas to them. But leave libertarianism out of it...at that point, Howley is an individual social activist, not a libertarian.
Libertarianism is about the proper role of government and the liberty it provides everyone under such a regime to live their lives as they see fit, not the way Kerry Howley sees fit.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:55 pm24AheadDotCom says:
1. Most people probably care what LaRouchians think more than they care what libertarians think.
2. With all their talk of restricting personal liberty, why do almost all libertarians support policies that — here in the real world — give even more power to groups like this and this? Both those groups are incredibly collectivistic, yet the libertarians are heck-bent (bowdlerized for your protection) on giving them even more power than they have already.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:56 pmOren says:
What if he believes that totalitarian Statism is the best form of government? He believes that, and therefore he is not (IMO) a libertarian. To be more precise, I simply do not believe that such a belief can be reconciled with my conception of libertarianism.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 1:59 pm24AheadDotCom says:
1. Most people probably care what LaRouchians think more than they care what libertarians think.
2. With all their talk of restricting personal liberty, why do almost all libertarians support policies that — here in the real world — give even more power to groups like this and this? Both those groups are incredibly collectivistic, yet the libertarians are h-bent (bowdlerized for your protection) on giving them even more power than they have already. Why is that? Can’t they figure out what they’re doing? Or, are they just paid off?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:00 pmOren says:
Other way around — I think a belief in freedom requires certain philosophical premises that are incompatible with other philosophical premises.
In my mind, one cannot believe that freedom is the best way to organize a society without accepting that each individual is the ultimate authority on his personal utility function. If you reject that premise, then there is no reason to advocate for freedom* since that would not maximize global utility.
* I mean philosophical reason. Obviously there are practical reasons, but as I’ve said, in my opinion that is very thin gruel on which to construct a political theory.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:02 pmTwirlip says:
I don’t know. I’ve heard the term “paleo-libertarian” being bandied about. As with “paleo-conservative”, the root of the idea is that the current libertarians, or conservatives, are not the real thing.
Nock’s take on business was sharply different from that of Rand, after all.
Big government libertarianism? I think certain strands of libertariansm are are least nascently totalitarian. The cry of “freedom!” has been used often enough in the past by those seeking power.
Read this comment:
and consider that it can lead quite easly to calls for state action to “free” that teenager from his involuntary presence in a particular place.
Social liberalism, which libertarians applaud foe the most part, has employed the coercive power of the state in megatons to accomplish its goals.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:03 pmOren says:
Good to know that we have an authoritative source on what disputed words regarding political philosophies mean. At heart, this is a discussion about different conceptions of libertarianism. If you conception of the word doesn’t allow for these different ideas on what it means, I would venture to say you ought to get out more.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:04 pmSuperSkeptic says:
If you need a philosophical justification, why not simply freedom? why utility?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:05 pmOren says:
Why freedom and not tyranny? Other that my own personal preference (which, of course, would be circular — freedom to pursue my personal preferences is good because it is my personal preference to be free), why wouldn’t tyranny be better than freedom?
It certainly would, I would argue, in a world in which utility could be measured objectively.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:12 pmRobert Ayers says:
I thought the Reason article excellent.
I read Kerry Howley making a point that Ilya Somin and the commentators so far have not focussed on: there isn’t a pure dichotomy between “society” and “government”.
“The law” isn’t just “the laws”. Prosecutors in the US have enormous discretion. And the “maintenance of order” may be in effect farmed out to NGOs: religious orthodoxy may be maintained by extra-legal groups that are “the law” de facto even if not de jure.
If the libertarian refuses to see “the power of the state” when it is not nicely codified within a western legal system, he misses much oppression.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:13 pmCurious Reader says:
Given that the topic of the post is an intra-libertarian debate, Oren’s anti-libertarian criticism should be ignored.
Perhaps this is off-topic, but I wonder why there are no decent rankings of libertarianism amongst Congressmen. For example:
I left out taxes and other issues that would be difficult to measure reliably. Why is there no publicly available index measuring this? (Please note, I checked around: the NRA measures more than just votes and veers into social conservatism; the ACLU includes attitudes toward Democratic legislation unrelated to civil liberties and supports state financed abortion; the Republican Liberty Caucus uses generalized data that simply favors Republican supply-siders.)
Is this truly controversial?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:13 pmJeffersonian says:
Well, Oren, then consider that my opinion, which seems to dovetail quite well with Ilya Somin’s. Perhaps he and I can get out together.
But also consider that, once libertarianism incorporates a set of social goals beyond those narrowly defined as preventing force, fraud or assumption of a provable externality, it leaves itself open to charges of statist promotion, charges which will be, in reality, true.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:14 pmTwirlip says:
You can phrase it however you wish but the underlying reality does not change.
You want certain people to accept certain things about certain other people. You don’t accept that Bob’s personal utility function of not liking gays is a valid personal utility function. You propose to tell everyone what personal utility function they shoud have.
It would not maximise your own personal conception of global utility. Your error is in thinking that you can decide for all people what their personal utility function should be. Which is where I see a nascent totalitarianism in libertarian theory.
You want a world in which certain things happen and certain things should not happen, which is fine as far as it goes. We all want that. Your problem is in believing that your beliefs are best described as “freedom”.
Libertarian freedom allows people to do whatever they wish, provided only that it causes no immediate harm to another. It is not a magic wand for eliminating prejudice. In fact it explicitly permits it, within reason.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:14 pmASlyJD says:
I always thought that the distinguishing feature of libertarians was their insistence that someone else making more money or having more fun was none of their business. Well, if that logic says that it’s fine for me to become a heroine shooting millionaire lesbian Madam with BDSM hookers (it doesn’t hurt anyone, after all), why is it not equally valid for me to be a teetotaling clean living tithe-paying straight who willingly submits to her husband as suggested in a two thousand year old letter?
Is people’s libertarianism based on a true belief in the dignity of all persons and their ability to decide for themselves, or on an arrogance that says “we should be able to–no, we must do whatever we damn well please, or we are merely slaves”?
The problem of the disenfranchised in traditional cultures should not be overlooked. However, the way to free the culturally oppressed is to spread the libertarian “gospel” of free markets and property rights. The unwilling wife may not be able to “vote with her feet” at first, but if she can legally own a means of production (e.g. a sewing machine), then she can save her pennies and send her own kids to school. They can succeed, free themselves of the oppression and then save their mom. But if the libertarians squawk about overturning the culture, that saving gospel will likely be completely ignored and she remains the poorer while the libertarians remain smug and unpopular.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:16 pmTwirlip says:
With a larger ontology, libertarianism stops being libertarianism and becomes something much more like modern liberalism. It stops being worried about freedom and starts being worried about the outcomes of that freedom.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:20 pmJeffersonian says:
Bingo.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:23 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Exactly — if one could objectively measure utility, and it was determined that each should play his role in society (socially, economically, etc.) as dictated from the top-down in order to maximize utility, it would in fact be tyrannical; and it would seem that you would support such a thing.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:24 pmChrisTS says:
Curious Reader:
Irony of the day award?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:25 pmOren says:
How could my project of finding a solid philosophical underpinning for libertarianism be considered criticism? Do people usually criticize a position by discussing how one could justify it?
Before we sorry about outcomes of freedom, we should worry about the philosophical justification for that freedom in the first place. We have to answer the question “why freedom and not tyranny?” with something better than “because I said so”. IOW, I cannot advocate for a political philosophy that values freedom until I have a reason to do so. The justification of “freedom for freedom’s sake” is not more convincing than (actually, it’s logically equivalent to) “tyranny for tyranny’s sake” or “statism for statism’s sake”.
If you are comfortable advocating for a practical political position without any underlying rationale, more power to you. For me, that doesn’t suffice (and I see that I’m in the minority here, so unless you find this dicussion enlightening, I’ll give it a rest).
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:26 pmCurious Reader says:
Not really. It’s not off-topic. Ilya’s concern is with a pluralistic libertarianism. One that works in our political system. How to identify the Congressmen closest to that model and informing the public is relevant.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:30 pmSnorri Godhi says:
Ilya Somin’s first point is a more articulated version of my first reactions in reading Howley’s article: libertarianism is a political philosophy, and as such it should be concerned with the State, not with individual preferences. To assert otherwise is to start down the slippery slope that has turned classical liberalism into social liberalism, and the latter into a woolly version of socialism.
There is another, related point that needs to be made: granted, for the sake of argument, that it is appropriate to have individual liberty as the sole principle of government, it does not follow that maximizing liberty should be the ultimate guide to life. On the contrary, liberty is good only because it allows us to make choices, and these choices restrict our liberty. But Howley seems to take the attitude that cultural norms should be judged solely by their effect on individual liberty.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:30 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
Why not an ontology of rights? Certainly there are libertarian theorists who ground their libertarianism in such an ontology. And that grounding does impose limits on utilitarian caluculations.
I have always understood the critique of Mill by many libertarians to consist precisely in his effort to defend liberty on utilitarian premises. His views on liberty cry out for the language of rights, and if not for Bentham’s ridicule of that language, he probably would have availed himself of it.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:32 pmOren says:
I agree with that line of reasoning, which is precisely why I don’t support such a thing as an objective measure of utility. That is, I don’t think libertarianism gets off the ground without starting from the premise that utility is purely subjective.
I must have been unclear in my phrasing at some point, so just to clarify, I think the syllogism goes something like this:
(1) Belief in objective utility logically leads to Statism as the best form of government.
(2) Libertarians do not think that Statism is the best form of government
∴ Libertarians ought not to believe in objective utility because it contradicts their beliefs.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:33 pmBill Dalasio says:
My understanding of libertarianism is that it is the political philosophy that advocates the maximum of human freedom. But, freedom is not all good things. It is the absence of physical coercion. In fact, freedom means that we have to permit (and permission is not acceptance) behaviors and attitudes from others that we might find wholly ungood. If freedom, and hence libertarianism, is construed to mandate the attitudes and noncoercive private actions of individuals, it becomes nothing more than a farce, another variant of the mandated good life
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:36 pmChrisTS says:
curious reader:
I noted the irony of your claiming your comment might be off-topic while urging others to disregard Oren for not being on-topic.
Really, I don’t think one should presume to decide what is on/off topic as a basis for suggesting that another commenter be ignored.
In fact, you disagree with Oren’s conception of/form of libertarianism, and you want others to ignore that.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:38 pmOren says:
Absolutely not. I only want to state that, in my opinion, his beliefs are not philosophically compatible. That is, I think he is espousing two beliefs with contradictory premises.
Philosophical consistency is, of course, not the end-all of the universe and I’d rather live in a society with him than with a totalitarian Marixst, for instance.
I have no such desire.
My problem is that people believe in freedom without believing in thing that I believe are absolutely necessary prerequisites of such a belief.
Of course. It also permits people to advocate that there exists such a thing as a round square or a straight circle. The fact that people are permitted to hold whatever combination of views they want does not preclude me from believing that they cannot be simultaneously justified.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:41 pmTwirlip says:
That’s fine. You are free to arrive at whatever philosophical justification for freedom that seems most correct and satisfying to you.
If that philosophical justification means that you end up saying that lots of people cannot do what they wish even if it does not harm others, then you can no longer call yourself a libertarian.
For instance, if you claim that it is an “invalid choice” for Bob to refuse to hire Paul because Paul is gay (or black, or left-handed, or blue-eyed. or whatever) then you have left libertarianism behind and entered the realm of liberalism.
Accepting freedom means accepting the reality that many people will use freedom in ways you don’t like. This is as true for the gay activist as it is for the social conservative, and probably truer considering their respective numbers. But you have to accept that “freedom” does not automatically guarantee your prefered outcome.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:42 pmJohn Howard says:
Can a Libertarian be concerned that pushing for some individual liberties might lead to losses of liberty in other ways, and therefore take a long term view that restricting those activities and lifestyles with both laws and cultural attitudes is better for long term freedom for more people than letting a few people have complete short term freedom?
That is my contention when I say Libertarians should consider the likely result of allowing genetic engineering and same-sex procreation: greater government regulation and/or free market imposed coercion of reproduction, leading to loss of reproductive rights. Allowing a few people to do whatever they want leads to other people losing their equal rights and equality, and forces them to conform to a brave new world, and it’s not worth it at all. Much more liberty and equality would result from prohibiting creating people from genetic engineering.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:43 pmCurious Reader says:
Alright, Oren. Let’s take my operational definition:
Need there be an underlying rationale? I imagine a tyrant could take away all private gun ownership, abolish private property, eliminate dissent to protect the nation from infiltration, prevent challengers from running for office, and compel religious worship. Indeed, many tyrants did all of these things. I would be opposed to living under such a government.
I also see potential benefits to living in a world with private gun ownership, private property, free trade, free speech, free elections, and freedom of and from religion. Economists could calculate those benefits, and they have. There is a consensus amongst economists for this basic libertarian view.
So: it is rational, it respects individual autonomy, it is practically achievable, it would yield good consequences, and I would be opposed to its binary opposite. Is that not a sufficient underlying rationale?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:43 pmCurious Reader says:
In fact, you dis agree with Oren’s con cep tion of/form of lib er tar i an ism, and you want oth ers to ignore that.
No. I don’t think he has one. I just think he’s picking fights.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:45 pmOren says:
That’s a valid option but the metaphysical baggage is just too much for me to handle. Sooner or later, you end up suckered in to some form of Natural Law and, IMO, it’s all downhill from there.
Meanwhile, I’m offering a clean ontology of liberty at the low-low price of realizing that Bob’s condemnation of homosexuality is limited in scope to Bob and simply cannot be applied to Tony. For some, this might be steep (usually those that are insistent on telling others about their lives) but I think the majority of libertarians can deal with confining the validity of their normative judgments to themselves.
Bentham was right — burdening your philosophy with the language of intrinsic rights just raises more problems than it solves. The relationship of such rights to the structure of society, for instance, is a teleological nightmare.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:53 pmTwirlip says:
Me
Oren
Oren, you don’t seem to understand what it is you are saying.
That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t accept that other peoples choices and opinons are valid at all. You think they are logically nonsensical. And if you think that, I don’t trust you to respect their views. In fact I see you as exactly the sort of person who transfomed “classical liberalism” into modern liberalism.
Sooner or later you will logically ask yourself “why should people who believe in square circles be permitted to exercise freedom to the detriment of us all?”.
You don’t really accept the propositon that other peoples choices are valid if they run counter to yours. And eventally you will follow that thought where it logically leads, which is not towards freedom.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:54 pmOren says:
It is a perfectly valid choice!! It is just not consistent with Bob’s other professed beliefs — there is a fundamental incompatibility between that choice and the philosophical justification for his preferred political system.
If Bob wants to say that there exists a square circle, it’s a perfectly valid choice for him to believe that. I would say that his beliefs about that shape are fundamentally incompatible in the same fashion.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:58 pmLiberty, choice and the nature of “ought to” [Darleen Click] says:
[...] Ilya Somin does a masterful critique of the debate: First, some cultural issues might well be an appropriate object of concern for libertarians as thinking individuals, but not a proper focus for libertarianism — which is, after all, a political ideology, not a comprehensive guide to the good life. [...]
SenatorX says:
Oren for someone who comments at a libertarian blog so often you clearly havent spent any time reading libertarian philosophers. In a way you are lucky becuase there are so many excellent books and concepts you can look forward to being exposed to. For a start I would suggest Hayek because his writing style is so clear and his subjects cover the things you are asking.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 2:59 pmTwirlip says:
Pray tell, what are Bob’s other professed beliefs?
You are assuming that if he wants “freedom” he must buy into your conception of the “philosophical justification” for freedom.
There are several leaps of imagination on your part in this.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:04 pmOren says:
There is a difference between a valid opinion and a consistent one.
I emphatically do. Again, valid != consistent. People are free to make inconsistent choices and have inconsistent philosophies. They can believe in Jesus on Monday and Allah on Tuesday if they want, but the fact that they believe it does not magically create consistency in fundamentally incompatible beliefs.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:05 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Yeah, at this point, I simply fail to see how “utility” (subjectively or objectively measured) is any less of a value choice than “freedom” (objectively or subjectively measured). Neither is any more concrete of a philosophical justification — it’s which you want more of.
The difference between the two, as far as libertarianism should be concerned, is that utilitarian societies historically (like those China, for example) are totalitarian. (and that probably is because it is the imposition of one’s values or conceptions of “utility” or what have you on another, whereas a core value choice of freedom defies that outcome — at least as it pertains to state action. And consequently, what we are struggling to deal with here is private totalitarianism.)
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:08 pmOren says:
I think my 2:33PM post addressed this — I do not think he can justify a political culture of freedom concurrently with believing in the validity of his judgment about others’ choices.
Again, he’s free to have political opinions that he doesn’t justify and he’s certainly free to believe in things that I think are contradictory. I don’t have to buy that his philosophy makes a lick of sense though.
SenatorX, reading the Road to Serfdom does not bind me to Hayek’s beliefs. As a concession, I’ll label my beliefs as “unorthodox libertarianism” since you all seem to think it’s fundamentally at odds with your conception of libertarianism (even though I still think it’s fully compatible).
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:10 pmTwirlip says:
You claimed that the opinion is logically incorrect.
Do you believe that there exist opinions which are logically incorrect but still valid? You seem to be saying that but I want to make sure I understand.
.
Then I’m not sure why you are expending so much energy in denouncing them for being “inconsistent”.
Still, you’ve piqued my interest enough that I now want to hear you justify your claims of inconsistency.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:11 pmOren says:
Yes. If you believe in Jesus on Monday but Zeus on Tuesday, that is perfectly valid (in the sense that no one is qualified to dispute your personal conception of God) but totally illogical (in the sense that the nature of God cannot possibly depend on what day it is).
Moreover, there are opinions that are valid and logically sound on their own right that are incompatible with other opinions. For instance, it’s both valid and logically sound to believe that one should always follow the law. It’s also both valid and logically sound to believe that one should always help runaway slaves. It is perfectly valid, but not logically sound, however, to believe both of them concurrently since there are situations where they cannot be simultaneously satisfied.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:18 pmTwirlip says:
I guess you are also. You’re not exactly falling all over yourself here in justifying your postions.
His “judgement of others choices” IS a choice, his choice!
For reasons you have not yet divulged you seem to think that certain peoples choices are privileged over others. Or at least that certain choices are privileged over others.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:22 pmOren says:
Because ultimately an inconsistent philosophy is no better than none at all — there’s no point in insisting on justification that is merely a fig leaf for our own opinions. The point of intellectual inquiry, in my opinion, is lost if you allow the justifications for different beliefs to be contradictory.
Just to be clear that I’m not casting stones, this is a flaw I find in myself quite often — realizing that I already believe in something while searching for a reason that it might be true.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:25 pmOren says:
I thought it was obvious — Bob’s choices relative to Bob’s actions are privileged over Bob’s choices relative to Tony’s actions.
Bob knows only about Bob’s utility function — Tony’s is entirely opaque to him except for what Tony says.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:27 pmTwirlip says:
Believing in Jesus in Monday and Zeus on Tuesday is not logically inconsistent, Oren.
You have this habit of conflating your own views of things with abstract logic. There is no inherent logical reason why the nature of God cannot differ on different days of the week.
Logic stands mute before the question of whether you should help runaway slaves. You can’t simply dress up your own emotional preferences and call them “logic”.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:29 pmTwirlip says:
Then explain your disagreement with Bob not hiring Paul for being gay.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:31 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Oren, I find the insistence on the utility focus justification for libertarianism remarkable. There’s a reason it’s called libertarianism and not utilitarianism. If your definition of libertarianism were to prevail, libertarianism would cease to exist, and utilitarianism would usurp it’s place.
I thought it was obvious — Bob’s choices relative to Bob’s actions are privileged over Bob’s choices relative to Tony’s actions.
The only reason that Bob’s choices are “privileged” is because of freedom, not because of utility. According to your logic, if Tony’s decisions weren’t “opaque” to Bob, Bob would be justified in imposing his choices on Tony. That’s not what I view as liberty.
But you counter by saying that, well, they’ll always be opaque because utility function is subjective and that’s my justification for libertarianism — but that’s no counter, because I, as a freedom supporter, do not care whether utility is objective, subjective, or otherwise — it plays no part in the determination of why I want to let others alone. I want to let them alone because, like the golden rule, I’d like to be left alone. I, unlike you, do not want to be left alone merely because someone else cannot accurately determine whether my choices maximize my utility.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:42 pmJeffersonian says:
Let’s stipulate that in my libertarian universe, Oren would be perfectly free to criticize as inconsistent Bob the Libertarian’s anti-gay views and his decision not to, say, hire or rent to homosexuals.
Would Bob be similarly free to do so in Oren’s? Kerry Howley’s?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:53 pmAllan Walstad says:
I’m way late to this party. :-(
I read Howley’s essay when it came out and would like to comment, but first a few comments on the previous posts here.
Huh??
Tentatively agreed, and actually I think it works the other way too: Once you understand that utility is subjective, you should realize the importance of libertarianism as the only philosophy consistent with allowing people to pursue their own utility.
An important question. I believe, for example, that I can be a strict libertarian while allowing for coerced contributions to the common defense of a libertarian society against internal aggressions an external ones. However, the more coercive power levers are constructed, the greater the opportunity for those levers to be used against liberty. So government needs to be strictly limited.
I don’t see the inconsistency to which you are referring, Oren. If Bob’s utility is higher, ceteris paribus, with not having to deal with gays or blacks or whites or whatever, as long as his methods of pursuing that utility do not include fraud or physical coercion, it need not be inconsistent with libertarianism. On the other hand, I do think there is a tendency for libertarians to be tolerant of diversity on an emotional basis.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 3:54 pmOren says:
Fine, if you want to believe in libertarian solipcism go right ahead. I think it makes a mockery of liberty to ground it in such nonsense.
You misread. I didn’t say logic justifies it, I said it is not illogical.
It would, for instance, be illogical to help runaway slaves only on Tuesday because no one can seriously give any justification why an abstract property such as human freedom can be dependent on the happenstance of what day of the week. If you insist that human freedom might logically depend on such accidents, I would say that your view of human freedom makes no sense to me at all.
Next, I imagine you will tell me that I can be a libertarian on Monday, a Statist on Tuesday and a Communist on Wednesday and that’s perfectly logical because there’s no reason that a political philosophy has to be consistent across the days of the week. Even better, I can be a communist when they come to confiscate your house but a libertarian when defending mine! There’s nothing illogical about that either, right?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:05 pmJMHawkins says:
If this is really her belief, then I don’t think she’s a libertarian at all, rather just a moderate populist or liberal. The above quote essentially translates as “I’m in favor of people belonging to any culture that I approve of.”
Of course she justifies her cultural restrictions on the claim that some choices are dangerous to other people in difficult to measure ways (the equivalent of a “hostile work environment”), or are self-destructive and therefore people must be saved from themselves since they couldn’t possibly have known any better if they made that choice — it’s for their own good that we restrict their freedoms. But those are the justifications Progressives always use. Ban smoking, it’s bad for the children. Mandatory seatbelts, for your own good. Outlaw incandescent bulbs, for the environment.
She says that “Feminist consciousness, for example, came to be seen by libertarians as inseparable from statism” but why do you suppose that happened? Perhaps because “feminist consciousness” seemed to manifest itself mainly as the “backdrop of feminist assaults on free speech and calls for workplace regulation” she mentions. Howley appears to want libertarianism to be both a political and a cultural movement, but she doesn’t seem to think there will be any problem keeping the two action streams separate. How long before “cultural libertarians” are demanding the government mandate cultural choices? Gotta foster the right environment after all, and letting people make all these messy, ill-informed and selfish choices might not foster the right environment.
Your friend might be a nice person, but if the article represents her political philosophy, I’d have to conclude she’s not really a libertarian. She’s more of a tolerant leftist.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:10 pmOren says:
That’s a very good practical justification for libertarianism as a political arrangement — I won’t mess with you, you won’t mess with me.
IMO, it’s a very poor philosophical justification because it’s circular — it amounts to “you should respect my preferences because it’s my preference that you respect my preference”. Supposing (quelle horreur) that I never respected your preferences in the first place, I would have no reason to buy into your golden-rule justification in the first place.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:14 pmOren says:
Well, of course — you’ve already started the train of logic assuming that you support freedom!
I’m interested in reaching back before that to justify why you support freedom in the first instance, instead of, say, tyranny. That justification, I have argued, is of critical importance because it grounds the entire philosophy.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:19 pmAllan Walstad says:
I thought Howley’s piece was hopelessly confused–yet, it has served the purpose of stimulating good discussion.
Howley opens with a vignette about Min, a young Chinese woman who takes advantage of the economic liberty existing in that country now to shrug off her family’s traditionalist expectations, get a job, live on her own, and take control of her own life. Does Howley simply want us to cheer for Min? Well bravo I say, and (I speculate) so say we all. But I never got a clear statement of whether she wants government coercion to control what cultural values families may teach and model for their children. The problem there is that government power levers that serve Howley’s preferences today may just as well serve other preferences tomorrow.
“Not every threat to liberty is backed by a government gun,” she says. Right. It may be backed by a private gun or knife or fist. Libertarians oppose coercion by private actors as well as by governments. Does she understand that?
Howley says, “But when a libertarian claims that his philosophy has no cultural content–has nothing to say, for instance, about society’s acceptance of gays and lesbians–he is engaging in a kind of cultural politics that welcomes the paternalism of the mob while balking at that of the state.” But her uncritical reference to “society’s acceptance” is purely collectivist. “Society” is not a person who “accepts.” Individuals accept, or prefer, or choose with whom to socialize or engage in business. The word “mob” conjures up a violent and coercive group, thereby muddling the issue. Her essay is filled with such muddling straw-man rhetoric.
At the same time, I’ll grant that a libertarian attitude does tend to be tolerant of individuals making different choices and does tend to oppose paternalism. At UPJ, I’m rather famous (or infamous) for ranting against paternalistic administrative policies toward students. So I could be quite sympathetic to some of Howley’s themes if her essay wasn’t such a mess.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:22 pmAllan Walstad says:
One other point I would like to offer. Strict libertarians long ago drew a distinction between liberty and “freedom.” Liberty is the absence of aggressive force and fraud. Freedom is about being able to do whatever you want. It’s a bad mistake to confuse the two. Example: If you’re a cab driver (owning your own cab, say) and I want a ride, your choice not to pick me up does indeed mean I’m not free to ride in your cab; but it is no infringement of my liberty. Another example: Fred is not free to marry Jill if Jill chooses Bob. But Jill’s choice in no way infringes on Fred’s liberty.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:29 pmTwirlip says:
Oren, I’m unconvinced that you have an “entire philosophy”, as opposed to those who disagree with you.
But feel free to prove me wrong and stimulate debate by throwing it out here.
You can start be explaining why you support freedom “in the first instance”.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:35 pmOren says:
I did — because utility is subjective and therefore the only way to maximize it is to allow individuals to chose freely.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:40 pmTwirlip says:
Oren, you seem a mite confused as to what logic is all about.
To repeat a point which should not need to be made, there is nothing inherently illogical about believing X at one point in time and not-X at a different point in time. Nothing. No thing.
You’d impress the heck out of me if you could grasp that simple concept.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:42 pmTwirlip says:
Sophistry. Why is it desirable to “maximise utility”?
While you’re at it, define “utility”.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:45 pmOren says:
Government coercion isn’t the answer, but social values that promote gender equality and independent thinking.
It’s not always about the government in every instance. That’s her point. Libertarians can promote liberty in ways entirely independent of politics by fostering cultural values conducive towards exercise of those liberties.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:47 pmJohn Howard says:
Allan, what about this: Fred is not free to use his own genes to procreate with the person of his choice, if he is free to use modified gametes to procreate. How so? If people start using modified genes to procreate, then people will begin to be coerced into using modified gametes by market pressures and moral nudges and the principle of procreative benevolence, which causes people to choose any advantage or benefit they can afford for their child, and eventually probably would become de jure requirements to use modified genes. We will find that we gave up the right to use our own genes back when we said that same-sex couples had equal rights as a married man and woman, because that says that using modified genes is equal to using unmodified genes, and therefore our procreation rights are satisfied by being forced to use modified genes, just as same-sex couples are forced to use modified genes.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:51 pmTwirlip says:
I misread? I did not say “logic justfies it” either. Your conjured that up all your own.
That would be true, if your justification for helping runaway slaves (a) was a constant and (b) was that human freedom was inviolable.
If either (a) or (b) is false then your presupposition does not hold. For example, I might help runaway slaves only on Tuesday because I get paid for it on that particular day. Or because on Tuesday I can impress my significant other by pretending to care about runaway slaves, but not on other days when she is not around to observe my actions. The possibilites are endless.
Where did you take logic, Oren?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 4:55 pmyankee says:
As I read Howley, in Howley’s universe, the government would not prohibit Bob’s anti-gay views and decisions. However, libertarians and expressly libertarian organizations would criticize Bob’s actions and anti-gay social norms. They would argue that anti-gay social norms unfairly restrict the liberty of gay people and so would promote norms that treated being gay as acceptable and being an anti-gay bigot as condemnable.
The criticisms of Howley’s view raised by the more extreme commenters confuse me. They argue that liberty is just about physical coercion and social norms are not part of liberty, but they then turn around and say Howley is attacking liberty by asking libertarians to criticize certain social norms.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:00 pmAllan Walstad says:
Define “define,” Twirlip.
The way I’d put it is not in terms of utility but goals and purposes. Individuals pursue their individually-chosen goals and purposes, according to their own preferences and valuations. Each individual is the ultimate judge of his or her preferences and valuations. Libertarianism says individuals should be free to pursue their own goals and purposes in non-coercive interaction with other individuals. You may disagree. You may think certain purposes are superior and their pursuit may be coerced. And others may agree about coercion, but not about purposes. Competing coercion = eternal war. Libertarianism is a fairly consistent philosophy about how people with different goals and different preferences may live in peace.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:05 pmyankee says:
Freedom is not the same thing as freedom from criticism. In a free society, the KKK has to be allowed to hold protest rallies, but that doesn’t mean I have to respect being a member of the KKK as a “valid choice,” assuming “valid” means something like “socially acceptable,” “a pure matter of taste not subject to rational criticism,” or “within the bounds of reasonable disagreement.”
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:15 pmAllan Walstad says:
Your use of the word “coerced” in that sentence, at least as far as I quoted it, is entirely gratuitous.
...WOULD be coercion.
At some point, if we have individuals designing and manufacturing human lives in any number they please, I might have to relinquish libertarianism in that regard. You can take any philosophy and drive it far enough in some odd direction to turn it into mush. But we have to make choices, and I think it helps to have a fairly consistent philosophy rather than decide every issue ad hoc. Enunciating a philosophy also as the advantage of revealing and clarifying what might otherwise be thoughtless prejudices.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:20 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Individuals pursue their individually-chosen goals and purposes, according to their own preferences and valuations. Each individual is the ultimate judge of his or her preferences and valuations.
Right Allan, but Oren is saying that he chooses freedom/liberty (libertarianism) only because each individual can necessarily be the only one who determines those things. As a corollary, if those things could be determined by another 3rd person, and that 3rd person decided that the individual was wrong, they could coerce him. That elevates the core value choice of utility over freedom/liberty.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:24 pmJeffersonian says:
I think the problem is that Howley didn’t really specify how libertarians were to go about promoting this enlightened weltanschauung, Yankee, nor did she make a very compelling case that hers is the weltanschauung that ought to be promoted.
It’s a bit like the Justices on the Supreme Court citing foreign case law in their decisions, no? Why refer to a case in the Netherlands or Denmark on gay rights as opposed to, say, one from Iran or Sudan?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:26 pmSuperSkeptic says:
They might not be as confusing when you just remember that “the more extreme commenters” simply fear that Howley’s arguments against social norms as public criticism won’t remain without state action behind them for long if they become entrenched.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:33 pmBill Dalasio says:
Oren,
No disrespect, but in claiming that others’ defense of libertarianism is philosophically inconsistent, you presuppose a metric of utility as a basis for justification. But, it’s no less arbitrary to insist on utilitarianism as a justification for freedom than it is to demand freedom for freedom’s sake. Others are only being inconsistent to the extent that the model presumes utility maximization as its goal.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:34 pmJeffersonian says:
Precisely. Remember when it was “just” a little warning printed on the side of each pack? My, how far we’ve come.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:40 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Thank you Bill, that’s all I’ve been trying to say for the past few hours...
Quote
October 24, 2009, 5:49 pmOren says:
No offense taken, of course. I understand the criticism, and on the level of assumption I can’t refute it — you can chose to start your philosophical justification at whatever level you want.
All I can say is that the notion of utility seems to me far more fundamental than that of personal freedom. Even a caveman understands (perhaps not intellectually), that certain objects, services and arrangements are useful in that they satisfy his wants. He also understands, again in a rudimentary fashion, that other people have wants and that they can be satisfied in the same fashion. The notion is entirely universal, be cognizable across cultural and social boundaries.
Moreover, utility is self-justifying. A caveman has a want for food because he is a human being. That want (and hence the utility in an object that would fill that want) is not really subject to regular dispute since it rests on an empirical fact rather than an abstract concept. People have wants, things satisfy those wants. That seems as self-evident as any proposition is going to get.
Personal freedom, on the other hand, is a much higher level concept. It is one that is steeped in culture and history. To use it as a starting point is to assume that we all already understand and agree on what it means (particularly dangerous these days when everyone believes that his political opponents are enemies of freedom). It’s not self-justifying, it’s not self-evident (contra Jefferson, unfortunately — Natural Law being distasteful to me on other grounds) and it’s not grounded in anything empirical — it’s abstract.
This isn’t an airtight argument, of course, but I think it’s a damn good reason to start with the universal concrete concepts rather than the specific high-level ones.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:26 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Oren, that’s also the second time you disparaged Natural Law. I am very curious if you could expound.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:29 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
I hope you are not getting sick of all this. You write,
[What’s with the weird spaces?]
Ok. But I think the libertarian critics of utilitarianism — even rule utilitarianism, which I gather is your type — are correct that one can never get a defense of liberty as absolute as many/most libertarians want on utilitarian terms. It is always open to someone to claim that we have learned that, in fact, maximum individual liberty is not a utility-maximizing policy.
I’m not a libertarian, but I believe libertarians typically value liberty [short of harm to others] as of inviolable worth. And no consequentialist view that values something else – happiness, for example – as of intrinsic value will provide for such a valuing of liberty.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:33 pmAllan Walstad says:
That’s only a problem if you actually think some third party could conceivably know your goals and purposes better than you. Seems radically far-fetched to me. If Oren chooses freedom, then if it’s for that reason I think his choice is on solid ground.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:33 pmOren says:
It’s not a corollary, it’s fundamental. If a 3rd party really did know what was best for me (better than I did), then I think everyone would agree that they ought to be making my choices for me. That’s the definition of the phrase “knows what’s best” = “knows which choice lead to the best outcome”.
I feel like I must be missing something very fundamental here or there’s a language breakdown. Most likely I’m being uncommonly dense today.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:33 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
So, yours is a rule preference utilitarianism of the kind that limits utility assessment to ‘internal’ (self-regarding) preferences and, so, excludes ‘external’ (other-regarding) preferences?
One problem with this approach is distinguishing between the types of preference. If the question is whether Bob hires Tony, it could be argued that this is a matter of Bob’s internal preferences. Tony, by contrast, can be seen as having an external preference – namely that Bob give him a job.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:40 pmAllan Walstad says:
Perhaps so, but–whose happiness? As determined by whom? I’m the judge of my happiness, you of yours. Do you suppose we can go around measuring happiness of different individuals and comparing them on some numerical scale, then imagining various different circumstances and determining the numbers for each circumstance, then adding them up for all the possible different cases and choosing the one that maximizes? Libertarianism is a framework in which different people can pursue their own happiness, utility, goals, preferences, etc. in peace.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:42 pmOren says:
It’s metaphysically dubious and, in my opinion, highly narcissistic to think that the universe encodes laws relating to the structure of human society.
Moreover, even if the metaphysical unpleasantness was forgiven, there is an epistemological issue — how can one come to know the content of Natural Law in any objective fashion? It’s certainly not like physical law — no one suggests that you can make a falsifiable hypothesis about Natural Law in such a manner.
Finally, it fails the objective/subjective test. It’s not objective in the sense that there is no way you and I can reconcile our views on Natural Law (should they diverge) but it’s not subjective since it’s posited that Natural Law lives “out there”.
And Statists can value “social order” as inviolable worth independently of any other value either. Totalitarians can value “State Power” as inviolable worth.
Why should I believe any of them when they merely point to an abstract notion and declare that it has intrinsic worth by some unseen and indisputable mechanism?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:43 pmAllan Walstad says:
Not necessarily. One would also (for example) have to trust that the third party really did have one’s best interests at heart. What happens when power levers are created for some select few to determine what’s best for others and force them to obey? Will the power be abused? Political power? Almost certainly.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 6:47 pmCJColucci says:
Now I’m getting confused about people’s positions. How do we sort out the following
1. Smith learns that Jones is gay, proposes laws against it. Clearly not libertarian.
2. Smith learns that Jones is gay. Says “That’s Jones’s business, not mine. Jones knows what’s best for Jones” and doesn’t let Jones’s gayness influence him in any further activity. Clearly libertarian.
3. Smith learns that Jones is gay. Says “Seems like a bad idea to me, and I’d say so if it comes up, but otherwise it’s none of my business” and doesn’t act on it any further. Seems libertarian to me.
4. Smith learns that Jones is gay, says “Yuck. I won’t have people like that working for me.” Is Smith himself a libertarian, or merely someone who is essentially parasitic on a generally libertarian society?
5. Brown learns about the fourth version of Smith and says “No consistent libertarian would give a rat’s ass about Jones’s being gay and act on it, people should be libertarian” proposes laws against what Smith is up to. Which of Brown, Smith, or Jones — if any — is the libertarian and why?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:08 pmChrisTS says:
I agree. I am not recommending utilitarianism as the basis for social policy.
My point was that Oren’s grounding his libertarianism in utilitarianism does not provide the kind of grounding that many libertarians want.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:09 pmToby says:
Tht’s precisely what you’re missing. I, for one, feel that even if I amgoing to do something really really stupid (from your perspective, or form the perspective of a clear majority of society) then you still have no right to make the choices for me. You maky feel a social life is important. I am happier asa loner. I am happier associating with my own sexuality group. I am happier dressing only in feathers. As long as I donot coerce you, it is none of your business. The choices are no one else’s to make.
You may not enslve me by making me work to support your goals. You may not enslave me by making me like my mother in law (charming woman, actualy). And you may not enslave me by making me like your life-style, even if it makes you happier than mine does me.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:11 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
But, utilitarianism is, also, based in a conception of intrinsic value.
I saw that you appealed to the Bentham/Mill argument as to what people do, in fact, seem to value. I suppose other libertarians might argue that humans do value liberty – at least once they have tasted it.
I have a quick question for you: do you accept the aim of utilitarianism to maximize ‘net’ utility? I think the assumption that you do is part of what is worrying your libertarian colleagues, here.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:18 pmChrisTS says:
As an aside:
Isn’t this SO much better than trading barbs about various politicians/talk show hosts/etc?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:19 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
Interesting. I am inclined to view the genuinely naturalistic – as contrasted with theistic – versions as not ‘narcissistic.’ The former require only that one argue for some conception of human well-being, not that we are the most prized objects of divine concern.
Ah. You ARE a good Benthamite. :-)
Well, objectivity does not entail consensus, even in principle. If we are skeptics, we can argue that there is some objective answer to question X, but that humans will not/cannot attain it. Even if we are not skeptics, we might point to the long, sad history of human certitude proven wrong. As I pointed out to my daughter way back when: it does not matter if everyone in your group [class] thinks 2+2=5.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:30 pmAllan Walstad says:
Maybe, but I think libertarianism can be effectively argued for on utilitarian grounds, or shall I say on the basis of likely outcomes. It can also be argued for effectively on deontological or natural rights grounds. If you can kick butt in both arenas, you win.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:31 pmJMHawkins says:
CJColucci:
Let’s replace “gay” with something else. Suppose:
4 — Smith learns Jones is, in private, a racist who is raising his children to believe Blacks are subhuman. Smith says “I’m not going to let my business provide an income for someone like that” and fires Jones.
What’s your opinion of Smith?
Quote
October 24, 2009, 7:36 pmChrisTS says:
CJColucci:
I appreciate your comment.
It seems to me that Oren has his own theoretical reasons for being a libertarian. Of course, others can claim that the best reasons for being libertarian. Perhaps we want to distinguish between ‘consequentialist libertarianisms’ and ‘nonconsequentialist libertarianisms.’ Ok; let’s do that.
I understand that people want the categorial terms we use to have some reliable meaning (i.e., we want language to work), but I dislike this kind of ‘you are not a real X’ argument, especially with respect to political views.
I constantly remind my students that there is no single, narrowly conceived version of ‘liberalism,’ ‘conservatism,’ ‘anarchism,’
‘socialism,’ or any other perspective. These are broad theoretical categories.
Of course, if the terms are to have meaning, we need to identify some fundamental premises or content. And, as we become familiar with variants of a general perspective, we might wish to come up with new categorial terms or to provide modifiers for the categorial terms.
But to argue that someone is not an X because his/her view is not in perfect accord with mine, as an X, is pointlessly doctrinaire.
Aside from achieving greater precision in distinguishing among types of theories/theoretical stances and arriving at some shared use of the language, there is no real value in claiming that this or that is/is not an X view.
I say this as one who is frequently appalled by the claims of commenters on VC that this or that is what ‘socialism’ or ‘fascism’ means. Language does matter. But if we think that a categorial term means ‘just what I believe in all details,’ we are making words do more work – in the political theory sphere – than they can/should do.
These terms are neither approbative nor disapprobative in themselves. To pretend that ‘libertarian’ and ‘socialist’ are evaluative terms is to misconstrue the order of thought. First, identify and analyze; then, evaluate.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 8:02 pmChrisTS says:
:-) Yes, until your opponents note that you do not care how your view is grounded.
Ok, gentlemen, I am sigining off. Good night, All.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 8:08 pmSenatorX says:
There are quite a few arguments for liberty over tyranny. In the end though each person is going to have their own values and unless you are religious I am not sure where you think value hierarchies are decided if not in individuals.
Personally I am an atheist but I prefer the moral arguments for liberty (and enjoy the economic ones as a bonus). I believe the only moral actions are voluntary ones(but not all voluntary actions are moral). When individuals are coerced into doing things they cease to have moral authority, even if the deeds are agreed by all to be good.
I also don’t think any one person, group of persons, or state has any idea what is best for everyone in any sense at all. Tyranny? For what? While there are certainly some freedoms I will voluntarily give up the choice of absolute tyranny vs. liberty seems like a choice that could only be made if one starts with an ideal that deserves tyranny. Also it’s interesting when someone who has the freedom to question the choice wonders why the very thing that allows them that choice has value over the opposite.
In the end there are many reasons why liberty or freedom are valued highly (which isn’t to say it is the highest value at all times). There are moral reasons, there are economic ones, there are political ones. etc. The moral reasons being the most interesting to me I have a question for you Oren. If liberty isnt the lynch-pin of morality, what is? (assuming you are not religious).
Quote
October 24, 2009, 8:15 pmmariner says:
Kerry Howley is a totalitarian leftist in Libertarian drag.
I read a lot of the back-and-forth between Oren and others. The basic problem is that a REAL Libertarian doesn’t give a damn about what other people think — or why other people think as they do.
A real Libertarian simply agrees to live and let live, in community with others who similarly agree to live and let live.
Not that Jefferson was a Libertarian, but I think he expressed the idea well:
Quote
October 24, 2009, 8:32 pmOren says:
I conceive of morality as the set of guidelines that defines (or approximates) the globally-optimal solution to a long-term non-zero-sum game.
Yes, I’m a consequentialist through-and-through. :-)
Quote
October 24, 2009, 9:23 pmTwirlip says:
Hmm. I’m not ready to say that Oren is a libertarian just yet.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:09 pmTwirlip says:
The question cannot be answered with the avalable data. Smith may or may not be a terrific libertarian.
Well, we can say for certain that Brown is not a libertarian. Firstly for the law, of course, but also for trying to tell Smith what he must think or not think about gays.
Libertarianism does not require anybody to be indifferent to any trait or characteristic of other people. If you desire to hire gays, libertarianism is cool with that. if you desire not to hire gays, libertarianism is cool with that too. If you don’t care whether other people are gay or not, libertarianism is cool with that.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:20 pmTwirlip says:
No, Oren. Libertarians would not agree with that at all. I think even many conservatives and other non-liberals would take issue with that proposition.
The difference between you and big government liberals seems to be one of degree and not of kind. I’d descibe you a “small government liberal” rather than a libertarian.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:30 pmLinus says:
Is it really contradictory to be happy that Bill is free to choose A OR B, but be disappointed that he chooses B? No wonder others think libertarianism is just shorthand for relativism.
Even now, I can try to persuade my children that Coke is better than Pepsi. I do this because I love them, and because every right thinking individual knows that Coke is better. However, I would never FORCE them to make the choice that I believe is better.
But the fact that I won’t FORCE them somehow means I have to abandon my beliefs about the individual merits of the choices themselves? That’s, well, just a weird thing to assert.
Quote
October 24, 2009, 11:40 pmrpt says:
All of this abstract discussion is just fine, but Ayn Rand’s champion and disciple of the week, per Newsweek, is Mark Sanford. He certainly loves his “freedom”, and at the taxpayer’s expense of course. Love those stimulus funds. This is libertarianism in action in the real world. All talk no action; am I wrong?
Quote
October 25, 2009, 12:00 amDave Marney says:
Not all laws passed by the state are coercive and reduce individual freedom. States can pass laws against passing laws, as was famously done in the “free exercise” clause of the Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). The state increases individual liberty by limiting its own.
The state is neutral towards the particulars of religious faith and practice, but it is not neutral towards religion in general. Religion is something that people should be able to practice as freely as they desire.
This is the right pattern to follow for a libertarian social culture. Society should be able to show general favor towards those practices which foster liberty, without making any value judgment about a particular practice.
As an example, a libertarian society could certainly favor observance of religious holidays in general, with all the decorations and public displays that entails, without expressing an opinion about any particular one.
Likewise, the society at large should feel free to suppress those practices which it believes run counter to liberty. Prohibitions need to follow the same pattern of prohibiting classes of behaviors in general, rather than targeting specific individuals.
An example of that might be a prohibition against monopolizing a public resource such as the wireless spectrum. In the interest of making the resource as free as possible to all, we pass a net neutrality law that requires non-discrimination. Society isn’t picking Verizon over Comcast, it’s expressing — and enforcing — our collective values but defining what cannot be done.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 1:27 amyankee says:
How does one have “decorations and public displays” for religious holidays without expressing an opinion about any particular one? Every day is a holiday for some religion or other. Unless you’re going to put up decorations and displays for every single holiday of every religion, you’re going to have to pick and choose. How can you choose to recognize some religious holidays rather than others without expressing an opinion about the different holidays?
Quote
October 25, 2009, 2:54 amLiberty in Context says:
[...] Somin posts a long, thoughtful response to Kerry’s Reason essay arguing that caring about liberty implies caring about cultural as [...]
Bill Dalasio says:
Oren,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. And you make a very solid case for why you believe as you do. But, as Allan Walstad notes, there are other grounds, other avenues to reach the same conclusions (well, generally, as we see here). Now, I understand that you’re uncomfortable with some of those lines of reasoning. But, its easy enough for me to see where they could be completely consistent, as a result, in making value judgements of others’ behavior and claiming libertarianism. It seems to me like your utilitarian argument fundamentally treats those lines of reasoning as illegitimate. It uses utilitarianism as the basis for judging those other lines of reasoning.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 5:47 amOren says:
No, but I would appreciate if you adopted an attitude of humility. That is, you don’t have to abandon your belief, you just have to admit that it’s not a universal truth. Everyone (I know) seems OK with the fact that their preference for Coke is not universally accepted as gospel.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 11:32 amTwirlip says:
Since Sanford refused the stimulus funds, you are of course wrong.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 11:32 amOren says:
I don’t think they are illegitimate, I just find them unconvincing.
Sorry if I came off as too dismissive of them.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 11:42 amJohn Howard says:
Allan, I think coercion can exist even without a state law, I guess I agree with the opening paragraph of that Reason article:
The principle of Procreative Beneficence compels behavior more than a threat of a fine or even prison, and though the parent is saying yes to the offer of genetic modification, they really feel like they have no choice about it, they can’t say no. They might still want to procreate with their own unmodified genes, but they can’t do that if they also want to give their child the healthiest most advantageous genes, or share parentage with someone of the same sex, so they do what society and culture says is more important. That’s coercion.
Even if you don’t buy that merely being offered the option constitutes coercion, the chance that it would become de jure ought to give pause to Libertarians, and the likelihood that it would become a government regulated entitlement requiring more taxes and bigger Government ought to give pause as well. I think Libertarians should reject genetic modification and support a blanket ban on it, so that all people remain free and equal.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 12:49 pmAllan Walstad says:
No, it’s not. Coercion is force. We may simply have to disagree on that. Wanting to do the best for your child is not coercion. Another example: wanting to do something for my wife, because I can’t bear to see her disappointed, may be a stronger consideration for me than laws or fines, but it does not constitute coercion.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 1:08 pmrpt says:
June 2009:
“COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford requested stimulus cash for the state’s schools Monday, telling the U.S. education secretary he’s doing so under duress and the $700 million in bailout money will create more problems.”
As I said, all talk, until he accepts the money “under duress”. Just like Jindal, Perry, Palin, et al. “They twisted my arm....”......“They forced me to take it....” Give me a break.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 6:49 pmDoc Merlin says:
Excellent, Bill.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 7:58 pmWilliam Blackstone says:
“No matter how abandoned may be a man’s principles, or how vicious his practice, provided he keeps his wickedness to himself, and does not violate public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, then they become by his bad example, of pernicious effect to society, and it is the business of human laws to correct them.”
Quote
October 25, 2009, 9:18 pmJohn Howard says:
That is exactly what I’ve been saying about how Libertarians ought to favor a law against genetic modification, because otherwise the state would end up intrusively involved in regulating a process that ought to be free to all. One simple law that express and enforces our collective values (everyone being created equal), by defining what cannot be done (creating someone unequally).
Quote
October 25, 2009, 10:29 pmmischief says:
Then you would be wrong.
Witness the famous argument for why God’s goodness is compatible with the existence of evil: that our freely choosing good is so much better than our doing so mechanically, that it is worth the side-effect that sometimes, we chose evil and so produce evil.
Quote
October 25, 2009, 10:37 pmM. Simon says:
I have had discussions with a prominent Libertarian who espoused that very view. I’m not entirely happy with the way government enforces anti-Jim Crow. But I was even more unhappy with Jim Crow — since age five. I saw a “Coloreds Only” sign on a water fountain and intentionally drank from that fountain. Knowing somewhat instinctively that being a five years old I could get away with it.
Life is messy. And Libertarians don’t have all the answers. Principles may be fine in the abstract. They don’t answer all real life questions.
Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of petty minds. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The resort to a set of rules to answer all questions absolves one of thinking.
The busting of Jim Crow was to an extent anti-Libertarian. And yet IMO we are better off without it. Now that we are on the other side I know of few who would wish to go back and very little enforcement is required. Affirmative action is quite another question. I’m against it because in its current incarnation (quotas) it subverts merit.
Quote
October 26, 2009, 2:48 amM. Simon says:
But we are not all created equal. We are created with equal rights. Which is quite a different thing.
Quote
October 26, 2009, 2:52 amM. Simon says:
That brings up the case of abortion for genetic defects.
It is done.
Jews as a matter of Jewish law have a different view of abortion than Catholic Church law. And seculars may have another attitude all together. The way to minimize (it can’t eliminate) conflict is the simple doctrine “Don’t want abortion? Don’t have one.”
Putting aside the Federal Competence to legislate or rule (court decisions) in the area, the Supreme Court trimester and viability approach is a good compromise.
My general attitude? Any government strong enough to outlaw abortion is strong enough to make it mandatory. See China.
Quote
October 26, 2009, 3:09 ammischief says:
Ask them why they think legal enforced segregation would survive without legal enforcement.
Take the law Rosa Parks broke. The buses weren’t segregated until the law was passed. Indeed, they weren’t segregated after the law was passed until the police took to randomly stopping buses and checking, and if anyone on board broke the law, they arrested the bus driver.
Quote
October 26, 2009, 11:28 ammischief says:
We can minimize a lot of conflict that way.
“Don’t want child abuse? Don’t abuse one.”
“Don’t want rape? Don’t rape anyone.”
“Don’t want welfare? Don’t apply for it.”
“Don’t want slavery? Don’t enslave anyone.”
People who object to abortion do so on the grounds that you are chopping someone limb from limb, or shooting them full of an excruciating toxic potion, or sucking their brains out.
And that one, generally applied, could also be useful to simplify conflict.
“Any government strong enough to outlaw child abuse is strong enough to make it mandatory”
“Any government strong enough to outlaw rape is strong enough to make it mandatory”
“Any government strong enough to outlaw slavery is strong enough to make it mandatory”
Quote
October 26, 2009, 11:32 amD Choi says:
What light might the Supreme Court case of Wisconsin v. Yoder shed on this issue?
To change the facts a little, let’s say that there was a religious sect in America that wanted to pull only its girls out from the school system (and from any formal education whatsoever) at some early age. Should this be permissible?
What would the libertarian position on such a question be, and why?
Quote
October 27, 2009, 8:30 amDave Marney says:
Me letting you speak doesn’t mean I’ve expressed an opinion about what you’ve said. It just means I think you should be allowed to speak.
Even if I were to regulate how you speak (“could you lower your voice a bit, dear?”) it doesn’t mean I’ve chosen sides. It just means I would like to be comfortable listening to you.
A libertarian society could operate on the same principles. If Johnny wants to wear a cross or a turban to school, he should be allowed to do so on the grounds of freedom of expression. The school may need to regulate the manner in which crosses and turbans are worn to protect the safety of others, and that’s fine, too.
But if the school were to choose crosses over turbans based not on regulative principles but on mere preference, then that would be the state expressing favoritism, and would be wrong.
Quote
October 27, 2009, 3:00 pmDave Marney says:
This is a great scenario!
Small-l libertarianism isn’t synonymous with “libertine”. Libertarianism is simply a style of governance that favors voluntary association. The fact that a social contract is entered into voluntarily doesn’t mean it cannot be enforced.
To take a more extreme example, we could voluntarily agree to never steal from each other, and if anyone does, we also voluntarily agree to lock that person up in prison or otherwise forcibly disassociate them from society!
The point is, a thief has already disassociated himself from society; he has already broken the social contract, one that he entered into voluntarily. For society to forcibly disassociate him is to simply make manifest that which has happened in secret.
Now applying this to the scenario of taking children out of school. If society makes a voluntary contract with itself that children will be educated, then of course such a rule could be enforced by requiring parents to have their children attend school. The enforcement is part of the contract.
However, a society based on libertarian precepts would want to provide parents with as much freedom of choice in this area as possible. The type of one-size-fits-all schooling that we have today would not be seen as very desirable. Letting a parent home-school a child would probably be one of the agreeable options.
Quote
October 27, 2009, 3:27 pmD Choi says:
Home-schooling is not that controversial as long as it satisfies a state-mandated educational curriculum. But what if, like the Amish, the parents wanted to opt out of having their children taught stuff that is mandated for everyone else, like science, algebra, world history, etc. etc. What if the parents wanted fuller control over the educational curriculum of their children?
Indeed, should the state even be in the business of mandating that all children be taught certain subjects and disciplines? Why not leave that entirely up to parents?
So my question was about the ability not just to home-school, but to withhold education from children. That is what the Yoder case was about, and that is what my hypothetical is about too. It is also a live issue in countries like Afghanistan, where girls have been denied equal education by their parents.
Quote
October 27, 2009, 3:37 pmDave Marney says:
I see your point. My response would be to reject the notion that there has to be a contest between “the state” and “the people”. When people associate voluntarily, there is no us vs. them — there’s just us.
See how differently your question about mandating education would be in a voluntary society: “we have all agreed to make education mandatory for the children who live in our town — do you consent to that?”.
I think this illustrates nicely that the problem isn’t with formal governments per se, nor with having rules for right and wrong, the problem is that our allegiance to both has become deeply involuntary (at least in the US; can’t speak for other countries.)
And the involuntary nature of our society has lead to a vast restriction of options in all areas. Like Henry Ford, today’s society tells us that “You can have any color you want, as long as it is black.”
So we have a system that is both involuntary and inflexible. That makes it impossible to deal fairly and humanely with a situation like the ones you are describing where the family doesn’t believe in educating young girls. In a libertarian society, there would be a lot more flexibility, and that alone might let us work out a compromise. If there is no compromise possible, then those families could even go so far as to form their own society, like the Amish do here in the US.
In any event, what I am saying is that libertarianism, as a style of governance, is much less dogmatic about such things, and is therefore a better system for working out whatever compromises are required. We don’t have to give up on having a shared sense of values to be libertarian, nor do we have to give up on having a formal way to enforce those values. We just need more freedom.
Quote
October 28, 2009, 6:27 am