A few readers have emailed me regarding my post on libertarianism. There are two main points that I’d like to address.

“Sexual mutilation is a bad example because it violates a woman’s right to life and liberty.”

The idea here is that the prevention of sexual mutilation is not incompatible with libertarian ideology because such an act would infringe on a woman’s right to life and liberty.

I think that’s a decent rebuttal. However, upon further consideration, it seems that what’s of prime importance in this scenario is not “liberty,” but “life.” After all, we are essentially saying that one person’s liberty is more important than another’s. This seems rather obvious — of course a person’s liberty to not be sexually mutilated overrides a person’s liberty to sexually mutilate. Still, it would be accurate to say that liberty is not prime, whereas innocent life is.

“Liberty” is defined as follows:

The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.

I don’t think libertarians would actually claim that liberty is of utmost importance. That is to say, any reasonable person would hold that there are situations in which a person’s way of life should be subject to restrictions. So, here’s my problem: If liberty is not prime, then why use the term “libertarian”?

It seems that “libertarianism” as such rests on a negative definition of liberty, i.e., “A person should be at liberty to do anything he or she wants, so long as that liberty does not include A, B, or C.” In this sense, “liberty,” is just whatever is left over after the imposition of certain reasonable restrictions.

I suppose my point is that we should concentrate on these restrictions, and not “liberty,” for it is the nature of these restrictions which truly defines the principles you abide by. Otherwise, everyone is a libertarian — “People should be free to do anything…except for owning property, voting, and choosing who they can marry.”

So what do I think is the underlying principle of the libertarianism most Americans refer to? Well, I think it’s something to do with the general welfare, which I will discuss in the following section.

“Consequentialism without principles makes no sense. There is no ‘consequentialism’ by itself.”

A great point. A reader brought it to my attention that I never established a principle by which to model my “consequentialist” worldview. Surely, there must be some principle by which I can say, “These consequences are good, and these consequences are bad.” So what would this principle look like?

Perhaps a consequence is “good” if it promotes the general welfare, and perhaps a consequence is “bad” if it detracts from it. That sounds decent, except it’s not entirely clear what the “general welfare” is. Is it in the general welfare to kill one individual to save five? People respond to that question differently depending on how it’s phrased. Does that mean there’s no “right” answer? Not necessarily. There may be “right” answers — they’re just not so easy to define.

Take for example the principle of non-aggression. We could hold the following principle: “Force is only permissible insofar as it is necessary, in defense, or, in order to prevent another individual or group of individuals from initiating force in non-permissible ways.” That sounds like a solid principle, one I would intuitively agree with. However, the next logical question must be, “How much force is permissible in any given situation?” Now we need a second principle which relates to the first. How about this: “An amount of force such that a reasonable person would expect it to prevent the non-permissible action in question.” And then of course, “What is a reasonable person?” and “When is a non-permissible action ‘prevented’?”

You see, the principles become less clear as you expand upon them. As I said, however, this does not mean there are no good principles to abide by. I think there are, but they must be extremely complicated. If anything, my point is simply that I would hesitate to call myself a “libertarian” because I do not wish to commit myself to any one or set of principles. Indeed, every libertarian is different, but then I propose that we use a different label, especially if unabridged “liberty” is not our main concern.

Final Thoughts

These opinions are very rough at this point. I do not contend that anything I have said is necessarily true. As I said in my last post, these are my thoughts as they come to me. I hope readers can appreciate my intentions — namely, to introspect, and hopefully, to stir introspection in others.

Feel free to email me if you think I’m completely off the mark. And thanks for reading.

Update: TightWind’s Kyle Baxter responded to this post.