Do Libertarians Think Our Only Moral Duty Is to Respect Others’ Liberty?

By On October 1, 2012 · 12 Comments · In Book/Article Reviews, Libertarianism

More from Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know, now available for Kindle!

Some people mistakenly believe that libertarians think our only moral obligation to one another is to respect one another’s liberty. Even professional philosophers (such as the authors of a textbook I encountered in grad school, as well as some incompetent referees at Business Ethics Quarterly) make this mistake. And it is a mistake.

Most libertarians share commonsense moral concerns. They hold, like most others do, that we have duties to provide for charity, to avoid free-riding on others’ efforts, to treat others with respect and kindness, to provide for our children and loved ones, and so on.

Libertarians are distinct in that they believe each person has an extensive sphere of personal liberty. They have strong rights against being interfered with, coerced, or subjugated. These rights act as side constraints. They forbid intrusions onto others’ lives, even when such intrusions would serve those other people’s good.

…for example, imagine I am a supremely expert life coach. Imagine that I can determine what the happiest and best life for each person would be. Suppose I know with certainty that talented David would do much more good as a doctor than as a beach bum. Suppose I also know with certainty that David would be much happier and better off as a doctor than as a beach bum. However, suppose David wants to be a beach bum. Libertarians say that I cannot force David to become a doctor, despite how good it would be if he did. He has the right to choose his own way of life, even though (we are supposing) that I know with certainty he should make a different choice.

Similarly, even if you have a moral obligation to help the homeless, it doesn’t follow that I may force you to discharge this obligation. Does this mean libertarians are selfish, callous, or indifferent to others’ suffering?

… even if I believe it is wrong to force you to help the homeless, this does not imply I don’t care about the homeless. In the same vein, if I am unwilling to force to you marry your “soul mate”, that does not mean I am indifferent to your happiness. Rather, it means that there are limits on what I may force you to do, for your good or for the good of others.

However, libertarianism is not all one thing.

Classical liberals and neoclassical liberals take a softer line. They tend to believe the legitimacy of social institutions depends in part on how well those institutions benefit all, including the most vulnerable members of society. They say that a regime of private property and free markets could not be legitimate if it routinely left large numbers of people desperate and destitute through no fault of their own. Thus, for them, the extent to which a society may have a welfare state depends in significant part on how well markets work and well the welfare state works.

 
  • http://www.facebook.com/les.nearhood Les Kyle Nearhood

    The devil is in the details of that last line, how well do markets work and how well does welfare work. I happen to believe that a social safety net is necessary in any advanced economy for the simple reason that without one you might have a big movement for outright socialism.

    However, whether you can make one work efficiently is questionable. I would be satisfied with some sort of institutional controls which stop it from growing too large.

    Free markets combined with private charity should be enough, but are probably never quite enough. However, it has to be noted that the presence of a welfare system and of high tax rates greatly reduces the amount of charity giving.

    • Bob_Robert

      ” I happen to believe that a social safety net is necessary in any
      advanced economy for the simple reason that without one you might have a
      big movement for outright socialism”

      But, isn’t a comprehensive “social safety net” just outright Socialism?

      I can imagine such institutions being created by you, me, and others who care about the unfortunate. But the moment it’s involuntary, I will oppose it.

      • Sean II

        “Isn’t a comprehensive social safety net just outright socialism?”

        Not for me or you, but for some people it does become rather like that. The whole “safety net” metaphor would have us think there’s a bunch of people swinging back and forth on trapeze lines, occasionally falling into the nets, getting up again with fresh optimism, etc.

        The reality in places like the US and the UK is that millions of people move through the air with the greatest of ease, never falling, while generations live and die down in those nets, never setting foot on the platform above.

        A pregnant 14 year-old in West Detroit and a third-generation chav in an Ipswich council house didn’t “fall” into any “safety net”, they were born with the net drawn tight over their heads.

        It’s eccentric but not unfair to say such people live under socialism, even if the term can’t properly be applied to the nations in which they live.

        • martinbrock

          I suppose some people in the U.S. are born into the safety net and never leave it, but only a small minority of people encountering the net fit this description. There are three classes of people rather than two, people who never enter the net, people who never leave it and everyone else. The third class is the largest by far.

          Also, “in the net” is not an all or nothing proposition. One can be only partially in the net, so the largest class by far consists of people who have been partially in the net at one time or another, like someone who once received employment compensation for a few months but never received food stamps or medicare or public housing.

          Also, “in the net” means different things to different people. I worked for NASA for a while in an astrophysics lab. The job was often fascinating, even recreational. It paid well. Sometimes, it wasn’t very demanding. For some people, it seems a dream job, but I never actually satisfied any market demands. NASA satisfied my demand for such a job, but that’s not the same thing. Arguably, I was in the net the whole time.

          Also, someone born into a wealthy family and living entirely from a trust financed by rents for his entire life, a trust holding only Treasury securities say, seems entirely in the net to me.

      • http://www.facebook.com/les.nearhood Les Kyle Nearhood

        well no, a minimum safety net is not the same as full blown socialism which is a real risk. Technically it may all be socialism, but there is a far cry from food stamps and nationalization of industries, unions in charge of everything, and centralized industrial policy.

        • Bob_Robert

          ” there is a far cry from food stamps and…”

          Not in the slightest. It is not a “far cry”, it is merely one of degree. The principle has already been sacrificed, Socialism established.

          Either there is Socialism, or there is not. Either people are taxed coercively to pay for so-called “charity”, or charity is voluntary. There is no gray area, no “little bit pregnant”.

          Much like the old joke,

          “Madam, would you sleep with me for a million dollars?”
          “Hahaha. Sure, I would.”
          “Then how about $10?”
          “Oh! Just what kind of a woman do you think I am?”
          “We’ve already established that, now we’re just negotiating.”

  • Sean II

    Obviously this book, as plainly advertised in its title, takes on a very big task. You totally get a 6.5 for your difficulty score. And you must have known at every step there would be cackling magpies like me just waiting to notice whenever you said “all” instead of “most” or “most” instead of “some”, or whenever you forgot to mention some tiny sub-strain of a minor branch of an obscure school of libertarian thought that one of your readers just happens to hold especially dear.

    With that in mind, I’ll play the good sport and stop myself from reacting to everything that provokes a reaction. Sure, I cringe when you mention libertarians and “common-sense morality” in the same sentence, because I can’t think of any group that spends more time arguing about ethics and meta-ethics than we do. That moral intuition thing seems very intuitive to the people who intuit it, but it leaves me unconvinced. But that’s a simple difference of opinion so I won’t mention it, even though I obviously just mentioned it.

    There are other problems that seem more worthy of discussion.
    For example, you say: “even if I believe it is wrong to force you to help the homeless, this does not imply I don’t care about the homeless.” Okay, I know exactly what you mean, what negative image you’re trying to fight, what unfair critics you have in mind when making that point, etc. Of course I like what you’re trying to accomplish, but I don’t think you come by it honestly.

    The trouble is: to anyone you’d be having this argument with, your position does imply a failure to care. And they’re not exactly wrong to think so.

    If Sally wants to use force to help the homeless, and John want to help the homeless but not if its involves using force, what does that mean?

    It means John values “not using force” more than he values “helping the homeless”, while Sally values “helping-the homeless” more than she values “not using force”. In other words, it means John cares less than Sally about “helping the homeless”, and from her point of view, John’s amount of caring rounds down to “not enough” or “not at all” or sometimes even “stop pretending to care you crypto-Republican asshole!”

    Sally’s not wrong, not at all. John cares about the homeless the same way I care about one day being a 5.0 rated tennis player. I talk about it enthusiastically enough, but when the moment to choose arrives, somehow that goal always sinks to the floor of my priorities list. As you have it, John simply cares about the homeless LESS than he cares about other things.

    But that’s not fair either. Because what John really believes is: “using force sucks big time AND it never seems to help the people alleged to benefit from it, so I’m definitely against using force to help the homeless. In fact, I don’t believe there is really such a thing as ‘using force to help the homeless’. I reject your plan BOTH because I don’t like using force and because I don’t think it will do what you say, and I’m not sure how I could ever separate those objections. I reject your whole premise, force-loving Sally.”

    I don’t know how you could’ve said any of that in a book designed to reach beyond the choir of libertarian scholastics who talk about this stuff all the time…but that or something like that is what I wish you had said.

    • martinbrock

      … It means John values “not using force” more than he values “helping the homeless”, …

      Presumably, John will use force to defend his home (or his food or whatever) from the homeless, so this statement seems incoherent to me.

      In your scenario, John distinguishes forcible possession of a particular home, the home titled “John’s home”, from the forcible possession of the same home by a (formerly) homeless person. Rather than ruling out force categorically, John prefers the former force to the latter force. Not surprisingly, the homeless person has different preferences.

      Because what John really believes is: “using force sucks big time AND it never seems to help the people alleged to benefit from it, …”

      John doesn’t seem to believe anything like this. He seems clearly to believe that his forcible possession of “John’s home’ does not suck and does benefit him. He further believes that his respect for a system of ownership of this type by others also benefits him.

      • Sean II

        Okay, I think there may be a solution for us here:

        Go back and read my comment one more time, and whenever I say the word “homeless” simply substitute the word “kidney-less”.

        If, after that, you still see no difference between the “force” John uses to keep both of his own kidneys inside his own abdomen, and the force someone else might use to remove one of them against his wishes…well, then, I’m afraid we’ll just have to drink in different saloons from now on.

        • martinbrock

          I see a difference between the force John uses to keep his kidney and the force he uses to keep his house, but John nonetheless keeps his kidney from a kidney-less person only if 1) the kidney-less person agrees not to take John’s kidney forcibly or 2) John resists the kidney-less person’s force with greater force.

          In the first scenario, John has a “right” to his kidney, and the kidney-less person has a “duty” not to take John’s kidney.

          In the second scenario, John is stronger than the kidney-less person. Rights have nothing to do with who gets the kidney in this scenario.

          The second scenario is the state of nature rather than an artificial, civilized state. Nature is neither right nor wrong. Human beings create civilization by giving rights to one another.

          I’m not suggesting that John should not resist the kidney-less person’s force with greater force. That’s not my point at all. If I’m in John’s shoes, I certainly want the right, and if I can’t have the right, I want to be stronger. All else being equal, I’ll agree not to take John’s kidney by force, so I’ll have duty not to take it.

          On the other hand, I can’t honestly tell you that I prefer John’s life to my own. I want to be ethical, but honesty with myself must be the first principle of my ethics; otherwise, I can’t even know what my ethics really are.

  • martinbrock

    Yes. Liberty implies no respect for particular, forcible proprieties. My respect for your liberty includes a respect for your choice of any system of forcible propriety you like.

    No one must feed a hungry person, even if the person will starve otherwise; however, no one must respect any assertion of propriety either. If you’re starving and I refuse to share my food with you, you may kill me and take my food. I’m hardly shocked that you would behave this way, and I’m foolish to complain. If I don’t want starving people to kill me, I have the option of sharing my food, and people will share to avoid these dilemmas.

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