Charles Murray almost had me. When I first read Murray’s “What It Means To Be A Libertarian” nearly ten years ago I was compelled by the thrust of his argument. "Freedom is first of all our birthright,” Murray claimed. “An adult making an honest living and minding his own business deserves to be left alone to live his life. He deserves to be free."
Libertarianism appeared to be an attractive political philosophy yet something was missing. It reminded me of my high school days when after reading “The Fountainhead” I wanted to become an Objectivist. Doing so, however, required me to deny a concept that I had known was undeniably true: original sin. And then I realized the problem with libertarianism, like objectivism and liberalism, was that it required accepting a romanticized view of human nature.
Like other “ism’s”, libertarianism is difficult to define. Essentially, libertarians believe that each person “owns” his own life and property, and has the right to make his own decisions about how he shall live, providing he respects the rights of others to do the same. Cato Institute vice-president David Boaz adds that the basic political issue of libertarianism is the relationship of the individual to the state. (Since Boaz is one of the intellectual leaders of this philosophy I will use his ”Key Concepts of Libertarianism” throughout this critique.)
The primary flaw in libertarianism is that it is rooted in an ethic of utilitarianism rather than virtue ethics. Without a person developing the corresponding moral character necessary for self-restraint, his liberty is bound to result in the harm of others. In fact, freedom without virtue is corrosive and will destroy everything within its range. The Founding Fathers understood this connection between liberty and a virtuous citizenry when they founded our republic. "'Tis substantially true," George Washington wrote in his farewell address, "that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
Libertarians, however, are not hedonists. They do believe that the rule of law is essential to government, though instead of rooting it in natural law theory they rely on “spontaneously developed legal rules.” (I find it rather surprising that a theory that relies on such concepts “natural rights” and “natural harmony” has so little use for “natural law.”) Boaz’s assertion reminds me of the old Calvin and Hobbes game of “Calvinball” where the rules on how to play are made up as you go along.
Boaz also contends that individuals should not be subject to the state’s “arbitrary commands.” (The fact that he doesn’t explain the difference between rules that are “spontaneously developed” and those that are “arbitrary” is simply one of numerous problems with his viewpoint.) By placing an overemphasis on individual liberty without an equal accent on individual virtue, the libertarian unwittingly erodes the foundation of order on which his political theory stands.
Order is a necessary precondition of liberty and must be maintained from the lowest level of government (the individual conscience) to the highest (the state). The individual conscience is the most basic level of government and it is regulated by virtues. Liberty, in this view, is not an end unto itself but a means by which eudaimonia (happiness or human flourishing) can most effectively be pursued. Liberty is a necessary component of virtue ethics, but it cannot be a substitute. Since it is based on the utilitarian principle that puts liberty, rather than eudaimonia as the chief end of man, libertarianism undermines order and becomes a self-defeating philosophy.
Contrary to what libertarians might believe, order does not arise spontaneously. It is either cultivated from within, through self-disciple, or is forced upon an individual from forces outside themselves (i.e., by the laws or mores of the community) if they lack the requisite character. Once established, this order has to be maintained to be effective. In the absence of order there is no peace, no justice, and certainly no “natural harmony.” Therefore before we can address the relationship between “the individual and the state” we must first establish the relationship between individual liberty and order maintenance.
Take, for example, the “victimless crimes” of prostitution, vagrancy, or public drunkenness. Theoretically, libertarians should support the “decriminalization” of all these acts since they do not necessarily harm other people or their property. But how long could a community last if such liberty is granted free reign? As the reknowed criminologist James Wilson notes:
This wish to "decriminalize" disreputable behavior that "harms no one"- and thus remove the ultimate sanction the police can employ to maintain neighborhood order--is, we think, a mistake. Arresting a single drunk or a single vagrant who has harmed no identifiable person seems unjust, and in a sense it is. But failing to do anything about a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants may destroy an entire community. A particular rule that seems to make sense in the individual case makes no sense when it is made a universal rule and applied to all cases. It makes no sense because it fails to take into account the connection between one broken window left untended and a thousand broken windows.
This is the heart of Wilson’s “Broken Window theory" of crime:
At the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.
In a similar fashion, the breakdown of community standards does not break down all at once. Rather each “broken window” of virtuous behavior (recreational use of drugs, for example) leads to more “window-breaking” until the community lacks the “virtue” necessary to govern itself and requires a higher level (the state) to step in.
Libertarians, of course, are primarily from the middle to upper classes of society. They are not affected by such behavior precisely because the police maintain a level of order and discipline within their communities. If, however, they had to live with such activity on a day-to-day basis, they would likely revise what was considered “arbitrary” and what is considered “spontaneous.”
Update: Steve of Drumwaster's
Rants! offers his own reasons for not being a "big L-libertarian."
1
Excellent post, Mr. Carter. As the great John Adams said,
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
posted on 12.10.2003 4:23 PM2
Thanks, Jared. I appreciate your comments here and on your own blog. And I really appreciate that you took the time to read this monstrosity of a post.
After spending three hours on it I was afraid no one would bother to read such a lengthy piece.
posted on 12.10.2003 4:30 PM3
That's a GREAT point about their romanticized view of human nature. Conservatives understand that the first need of humans is order, and that liberty has a short half-life once human depravity is given free reign.
That said though, Murray has been a big influence on me. I first read "Losing Ground" back in middle school, and its analysis of th failures of liberal social policy cemented my views seemingly permanently. Even today I haven't essentially shifted from his viewpoint.
posted on 12.10.2003 5:00 PM4
I agree with you almost entirely on this subject. Libertarians take a good thing too far, which seems to be rooted in their rejection of Natural Law, sa you mentioned. As an aside, I like Larry Elder a lot... he is a libertarian who believes people need a moral law as well... sort of like Adams...
posted on 12.10.2003 11:07 PM5
Mr. Carter, I think you should be teaching my philosophy class. Great post.
posted on 12.11.2003 1:54 AM6
I don't know about that. You don't recognize the great explanatory power of utilitarianism. A (libertarian) utilitarian can simply say that while 'freedom' and rights to life and property are the only things intrinsically valuable, virtuous characters and "order" (whatever that is) are good things, but good only in so far as they are productive of freedom and reinforce the rights to life and property. And I don't understand the relevance of the ad hominem at the end.
posted on 12.11.2003 10:45 PM7
I'm no philosopher, nor am I very politically adept, and at debate I am a rank amateur. But you seem to be confusing Libertarianism with Anarchism. As a libertarian, I'm fully in support of the rule of law. More importantly, I recognize that there is no fine line between "freedom" and "oppression."
Libertarians don't believe that the world would be a PERFECT place if they had a little more freedom; but it might be at least a little bit better, and at the very least it's worth a try. Many folks think that society is on a downhill slope, and has been doing so for decades; is the gradual erosion of personal rights over the last hundred years merely a coincidence?
posted on 12.12.2003 10:21 AM8
Hey Matt,
As I mentioned in my post, libertarians do believe in the rule of law. The problem, in my view, is that they don’t base it in firm foundation (i.e., natural law). The philosophy takes a pragmatic, make it up as you go along, approach to the development of laws.
From your remarks I would assume you prefer a form of “soft libertarianism.” Naturally, I am all for providing as much individual freedom as possible. But as the old saying goes, no man is an island. And it is often difficult to determine at what level individual freedom becomes a threat to freedom as a whole.
Is the gradual erosion of personal rights over the last hundred years merely a coincidence? No. Absolutely not. I think the erosion of personal rights goes hand in hand with the moral decline over the same period. Attempts to “define deviancy down” cause problems in other areas that end up causing individual freedoms to be restricted in order to maintain order.
All societies crave order. The more it erodes at the individual level the more the state has to step in and impose it. I would prefer an absolute level of freedom but human nature won’t allow it. As James Madison said, “If men were angels no government would be necessary."
posted on 12.12.2003 12:54 PM9
Like a laser, you have zeroed in on the very point which distinguishes conservatism from libertarianism. Generally, this means that conservatism's principles are based on transcendent principles which are part of the warp and woof of creation. Specifically, the doctrine where the basic difference lies is that of original sin -- which sadly doesn't enjoy great traffic even amonst ostensive evangelicals, where current polls suggest that Pelagianism (the idea that humans are basically good, and all that entails soteriologically) is embraced by a solid majority. Kudos for concision, precision, and, where called for, incision!
posted on 12.30.2003 9:42 AM10
Excellent post and responses especially the linking of "erosion of personal rights" and "moral decline."
Personally, I have always thought that Liberarianism was a little gutless. They seemed to be conservatives that either did not know how or afraid to make moral decisions. In their frustration, they through up their hands and say "everyone figure it out for yourselves." I have done this with my childeren on occation. But, I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if this approach became the rule in my house.
posted on 12.30.2003 10:33 AM11
Methinks you support your conclusions primarily by wrongly defining libertarianism. You assert that the libertarian view would decriminalize public drunkenness, prostitution (presumably the street corner or storefront variety) and vagrancy. A more accurate definition is that the libertarian would deny the state (or the majority, if you will) the power to tell an individual that he may not, in privacy, get drunk (whatever the intoxicant), employ a whore, fail to bathe and dress in rags, or make an embryo in a lab for the purpose of harvesting stem cells, or enjoy a host of other activities, absent a showing of harm to others or the community, OTHER THAN the harm, real or imagined, of just knowing such things go on (or, given that they're going on regardless, knowing that such things are not illegal). Note that this definition leaves room for notions such as illegal nuisance -- we shouldn't have to see such activity on the streets; we can regulate how much traffic Honey Hooker can have going in and out of her apartment. However, if truly private and non-intrusive on the peace of the community (again, excepting those that lie awake at night worrying about it for lack of anything better to do) vice should be left to the individual. The law should be such not only for the more than adequate reason that a free human being's conduct is his business, but because whatever harm, whatever degradation of the culture ensues from liberalizing vice laws (if there is any such degradation), a worse affliction is the empowerment of those who would pick up the impossibly heavy load of undertaking to enforce by law their view of morality on their fellows. No one is saying that those called to preach morality should not do so in church, by protesting in the streets, or, certainly, by teaching their children the morals they embrace. Moral suasion backed by threat of jail or a fine, on the other hand, is an insupportable tyranny, and the world can ill-afford to encourage that type of tyrant. Please also note that these tyrants are as ubiquitous on the left as the right; I'm not picking on Christian anti-libertarianism, at least not in particular.
posted on 12.30.2003 11:34 AM12
My libertarian friends sound more like victims than pioneers. They whine, "I'm just a victim and the government is to blame for my problems. Could it possibly be your own decisions, attitudes, and effort caused your problems. So, what is the best form of government. Easy, the best form of government for practicing perfect freedom is a monarchy. Which is what we have in heaven. However, since we live for now on earth, our republic form of government is an excellent temporary form of government. I am amazed at the wisdom of our founding fathers. They had first hand experience with the corruption of government and they found the right balance between society and the individual. My instincts tell me the problems with our society is not our form of government. Libertarianism doesn't want to admit that the heart of man is deceitful and needs to be held in check. Its funny how we all yearn for the Garden of Eden.
posted on 12.30.2003 10:09 PM13
I have to disagree strongly with the caricature being drawn against libertarianism. While I believe it can be argued that many libertarians do not believe in original sin, those who are 'believers' do believe that there is such thing as original sin but also that God gives us all free will. Conservatism believes that it is 'possible' to hold back the tides of human sin and degradation by government fiat. That is not possible which is why I agree with Joe McDermott (partially). As well, they also know that human beings are not 'islands', but it is also true that the good things we do CAN lead to negative consequences. For example, it is good that we don't kill toddlers, but if one toddler was destined to become an Adolf Hitler? By the logic people are using, it should be ok to murder some toddlers..just like the pro-aborts use the logic that less crime means it is ok to kill unborn babies.
If we go along the line of reasoning that people are espousing, it DOES lead to tyranny. Pure and simple. I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and yet, I find the conservative argument a little wanting. I have been going back and forth about it..but now, I am beginning to see how this 'no one is an island' argument (and such) simply make no sense.
I believe that God can make good come out of evil things, similarly, the devil can make bad come out of the good in this world. That is why sin is, inherently, the corruption of 'the good'.
That is why the 'no one is an island' argument simply does not work with me.
The libertarian definition of government is beginning to make more sense. As to Joe McDermott's idea that libertarianism tolerates harvesting little human lives for commercial benefit..he is horribly mistaken. He assumes that killing off preborn children does not cause any direct harm to someone..indeed it DOES. It kills the children! Libertarianism at heart is a prolife ethic...since it endorses the idea that all humans have the right to life and property, it also embraces personal responsibility.
God bless all,
Sarah
posted on 01.14.2004 3:57 PM