“Liberty isn’t the only value” he said, while pointing his gun at my head. - geoif
My response to the question "is liberty the only value that matters for libertarians?" would be the following: no, but it is clearly the most important one, by which I mean that it requires unqualified respect and constitutes a necessary precondition for the realization of any other value.
There can be no justice without liberty, since justice is equality before the (natural) law, and allowing anyone to enjoy his natural rights while violating those of others is the paradigm of unequal treatment. There can be no charity without liberty, since charity involves voluntarily giving away one's own goods, not forcibly extracting them from others and taking a commission for it. There can be no gratitude without liberty, since the feeling of coercive entitlement to someone else's wealth is the very opposite of gratitude. And so on for other values.
Every good deed requires voluntary intention and respect for the voluntary intentions of others. Every act of coercion destroys the moral worth of one's intentions by trampling over the intentions of others, by their instrumental and exploitative treatment, which necessarily constitutes the dehumanization of their owners, the essential features of human beings being free will, purposiveness and self-ownership.
Putting things this way, libertarianism seems to me not only not to exclude values other than liberty, but also - in contrast to every coercive doctrine - to give them the proper respect they deserve - that is, not treat them as excuses for one's envy, lust of power or any other vice in virtue's clothing.
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Hi Jakub,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your general thesis. But I can think of exceptions. I'd like to know what your take would be on these exceptions. I'm fundamentally a libertarian, but I like to challenge myself, and I would really appreciate your input.
Suppose a child is drowning. X walks by and witnesses the child's plight. Being physically strong and a capable swimmer, X could save the child with ease and without risk.
Unfortunately, X is a malicious psychopath. He likes watching children drown. This is his lucky day.
Y now also walks by. Alas, Y, who is a soft-hearted humanitarian, cannot himself swim, and so cannot save the child.
However, Y has a gun. He can force X to save the child by threatening to shoot X unless he saves the child. He decides to do so.
However, by doing so, Y obviously violates the non-aggression principle. X is not aggressing against the child. X has not impaired the child's welfare one whit. The water is killing the child. X is just a bystander, enjoying the view.
In contrast, Y is clearly aggressing against X, forcing upon him a positive obligation we would prefer not to meet. X is merely exercising his libertarian rights not to intervene. Y is deliberately subverting those rights to force X to intervene.
In general, Y acts to prioritize the needs of the child over the liberty of the X.
Question 1: Does Y act immorally?
Question 2: In light of the example, can it still be maintained that "Every act of coercion destroys the moral worth of one's intentions by trampling over the intentions of others, by their instrumental and exploitative treatment, which necessarily constitutes the dehumanization of their owners, the essential features of human beings being free will, purposiveness and self-ownership"?
Question 3: If (hypothetically) one were answer "no" to Questions 1 and 2, what implications would that have for libertarian ethics generally?
For a related example, see:
ricochet.com/main-feed/Crusoe-Ethics-Property-Rights-vs.-Wealth-Distribution/
1 and 3. I would say that X acts immorally insofar as he violates the non-aggression principle, but morally insofar as he helps to save the child. The presented situation is a dilemmatic one, and no world view protects its adherents against the possibility of being confronted by dilemmas, i.e. irresolvable conflicts of values that stem not so much from us undertaking too many obligations, but from the fact that the future is too complex and uncertain for any moral system to cover every conceivable problematic scenario. Hence, as far as I'm concerned, this is not a special problem for libertarianism - a committed statist could also find himself in a situation in which he would be willing to undermine the structure of the state in order to avoid something he would consider even worse.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what I believe makes a committed libertarian or a committed statist different from a utilitarian who treats moral rights and/or principles instrumentally is the fact that the former two would have to recognize that the dilemmatic situation forced them to commit a crime, which they should answer for. Hence, unlike a coercive redistributionist, Y from your example (assuming that Y is a libertarian) would have to be ready to answer for the crime of violating the non-aggression principle and compensate X for his actions in a way determined by a mutually chosen arbitrator (who would likely treat the dilemmatic character of the situation as an extenuating circumstance).
I wrote more on moral dilemmas in this paper - http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/33/rp_33_3.pdf - which you might find relevant to the problems you raised in your example.
2. Yes, I think it can still be maintained - I do not think there would be any moral worth in X's action. The fact that Y's action could have moral worth (which would have to be appropriately discounted against the fact of his violation of the non-aggression principle) is, as I see it, a separate issue.