Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Trouble with Libertarians

I have said to many folks, particularly my libertarian friends, that I want to be a libertarian so bad I can taste it. And I mean that. So what keeps me from signing on?

A handful of issues, for starters: as a group, they support abortion; they don't care for an aggressive foreign policy; and I simply can't quite come around on drug questions. Further, and this will sound very odd coming from me, they have too much of a distrust of government. Like it or not, there are things which only a government can do. Keeping order, for one, and keeping potential enemies at bay with the aggressive measures necessary. But I think the root problem with libertarianism as it stands today is the belief that the individual is the final arbiter of morality, the one who sets the standard for right and wrong.

No individual can hold this kind of power. On a practical level, it invites anarchy or worse: a might makes right society. On a philosophic level, it begs one very important question: if I, as an individual, can make up my own mind about people and things, why should I ever listen to you? No progress can be made from such a starting point in ethics, which certainly means nothing can be done in any other area either.

If libertarians were to admit that it is not the individual (or that weak sister, consensus) which dictates what can and cannot be done, that justice and rightness exist outside of those realms having a genuine being of their own, I may reconsider my position. Until then, they are as bad as liberals: they want what they want because they want it. It is a poor substitute for critical thought on critical issues.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marty,

My problem with Libertarians is their standard.

They measure the goodness of a society by how much freedom there is.

Scholastic thought (as per Aristotle's Nichomachaean Ethics) says that the goodness of a society should be measured by how much justice there is.

Aristotle identified four cardinal virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. Justice is called "the social virtue."

Freedom is a means toward acheiving the end of Justice. Freedom is not an end in itself. And sometimes Freedom must be restricted or even denied in order to obtain Justice.

Paul

Charles Martin Cosgriff said...

Very well said, Paul. I could not agree more.