Political Philosophy: The Libertarian State of Play

Hi y’all. Let me take the opportunity to thank Matt and my fellow cobloggers for allowing little ole’ me to join their ranks. Instead of me blathering on about myself, let’s get down to philosophical business.

Libertarians (academics, public intellectuals, pundits, bloggers and activists) tend to base libertarianism in two political philosophical positions: self-ownership and utilitarianism. My aim is to describe the two views. In future posts, I will explain why many libertarian political philosophers (including the BHL-strand) reject these two views and then I will offer an alternative. But for now, let’s focus on accurately describing the libertarian state of play. Tell me if I’ve got it right.

(1)   Self-Ownership

Self-ownership views are deontological. That is, self-ownership theorists claim that we have reason to respect persons’ natural ownership of themselves (their body, mind and their activities) and justly acquired property even if it has bad consequences (subject to certain limits). The self-ownership view is most prominently defended by Murray Rothbard. Contrary to what many believe, the idea plays a relatively small role in Robert Nozick’s political philosophy. In my view, most of Nozick’s arguments are made in terms of premises his interlocutors accept.

Self-ownership views include distinct principles governing the acquisition and transfer of non-bodily property. External objects can be acquired through labor and transferred through free consent. A third principle regulates violations of self-ownership, acquisition and transfer, but it is subject to considerable controversy among self-ownership theorists (see Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty for an extensive discussion). Consequently, libertarian self-ownership theorists reject philosophical left-libertarianism, which combines a self-ownership principle with some principle of equal distribution of natural resources.

Self-ownership theorists take their views to ground either a minarchist (super small state) social order or a market anarchist social order. As a result, self-ownership views are more highly concentrated amongst radical libertarians. Self-ownership theorists tend to take a more axiomatic or rationalistic approach to political philosophy, even deducing entire legal systems from these rather slender first principles (again, see Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty).

Many of you will be familiar with the libertarian “non-aggression principle” (often mistakenly called an “axiom”). But we cannot make sense of what counts as aggression apart from a self-ownership principle and principles of acquisition, transfer and rectification. Most self-ownership libertarians will be fine with this.

When libertarians embrace “natural rights” they usually implicitly endorse a self-ownership view.

(2)  Utilitarianism

Utilitarian views are consequentialist. What utilitarian libertarians tell us to do is to bring about good consequences. Libertarian consequentialists are utilitarians because they recommend maximizing subjective utility, not objective states of affairs. Nearly all libertarians accept something approaching a subjective theory of value: a state of affairs is valuable to the extent that it is valued by some agent. Subjective valuations by agents are represented by utility functions.

Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman were utilitarians. F.A. Hayek is often read this way (perhaps inaccurately).

Utilitarian libertarians typically embrace rule-utilitarianism – we have reason to act in accord with rules that maximize utility. I will say more about the sort of utilitarianism libertarians embrace in a future post.

Utilitarian libertarians defend a market order on the grounds that it promotes and even maximizes utility in accord with certain rules of conduct. These cost-benefit arguments will be most familiar to readers. Unlike self-ownership libertarians, libertarian utilitarians embrace a wide range of positions, from market anarchism to more modest views that permit the state to provide both for defense and a range of public goods.

Note: moral arguments that appeal to consequences are not thereby consequentialist. Everybody cares about consequences. What distinguishes consequentialists from others is that they think all forms of moral evaluation depend on consequences.

(3)  Aristotelian Eudemonism/Perfectionism Is Not (Quite) a Distinct Approach

Many libertarians are Aristotelian eudaimonists (sometimes called virtue ethicists) following Ayn Rand’s lead. On this view, all reasons for action ultimately derive from a conception of the ultimate good or final end of humanity – eudaimonia. We have reason to be virtuous and to flourish, and all of our moral reasons flow from those two goals (Randians and traditional Aristotelians believe these goals largely overlap).

Neo-objectivist philosophers try to show how principles of justice fall out of eudaimonist principles. But when pressed, they in effect (though certainly not in name) embrace deontological principles of justice that in my view look a whole lot like self-ownership views. On their view, a proper understanding of the virtue of justice entails complying with at least some general principle of non-aggression, a corollary of the self-ownership principle. I also read more traditional Aristotelian libertarians like Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl and our very own Roderick Long in this way. So it seems to me that eudaimonism does not provide a third approach to institutional (as opposed to personal) justice but rather provides a theory of practical reason that grounds deontological or utilitarian approaches to institutional justice. (I think I have eudemonist buddies who will disagree. Hopefully they will chime in.)).

Have I got it right? What do you think?

Note: In a recent article, Samuel Freeman employs this same division to characterize market-friendly liberal views, but sees these two views as resting on “conceptions of the person,” a Rawlsian concept that utilitarians and self-ownership theorists find foreign to their views.