This morning I found a contemporary writer completely new to me. Sheldon Richman, vice-president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. In a blog post a few days ago, he describes the case that the essence of Libertarianism contains judgements held by all. We'll have a look on that!
If so is the case, he argues, it would be a lot easier for other people to grasp the libertarian viewpoint if they already agreed with its fundamentals! Conclusion: let's prove that they DO agree with libertarian viewpoint.
He writes:
Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They, too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and property. I don’t believe they abstain merely because they fear the consequences (retaliation, prosecution, fines, jail, lack of economic growth). They abstain because they sense deep down that it is wrong, unjust, improper. In other words, even if they never articulate it, they believe that other individuals are ends in themselves and not merely means to other people’s [the] ends. They believe in the dignity of individuals. As a result, they perceive and respect the moral space around others. - One Moral Standard for All
Q: If most people agree with Libertarians that force, violence or threat of violence is wrong, what sets libertarians apart from non-libertarians?
A: Libertarians are consistent in applying this ethic. Non-libertarians are not.
Solution: The State. Non-libertarians tend to rely on the institution of State for certain responsibilities (in a declining scale from everything in a communist view to nothing in an anarchist view). Non-libertarians, essentially, say that initiation of force indeed is wrong, but when the Institution of State initiates force, that is morally acceptable. Why? Because we voted for a government with certain responsibilities, i.e majority contracted certain rights to be performed by third party institution.
The fallacy in this argument is the following. If I don't have the right to initiate force against other people, and they don't have the right to initiate force against other people, HOW can we delegate such right to a third party? We simply cannot. Non-rights cannot be delegated, because non of us had them to begin with.
Put in a deductive reasoning scheme the idea would be something like this:
P1: Initiation of force is morally injustified
P2: Contradictions cannot exist
= No initiation of force can be morally justified.
That is, to be successful/coherent in their reasoning, non-libertarians have to refute either the initiation of force or the existence of logic.
Unfortunately, they chose denying logic.
What's your opinion on retaliation Joakim? If someone else initiates the use of force upon you, is it morally justifiable to respond in kind?
ReplyDeleteYou need to make the distinction between "violence", which has quite a strict definition, and "force", which can take many different forms.
ReplyDeleteHi, Josh! Great questions.
ReplyDelete1) retaliation. Yes. That is why libertarians consistently talk about INITIATING violence, bc self-defense or taking back what is rightfully yours requires such actions but are justified on the basis of private property.
2) Possibly you're right. My view is that they're essentially the same thing in this sense; using violence or the threat of violence as a means to an end (I hit you to steal your car etc). To my understanding force is just a broader term that involves violence aswell as threat, violation of private property etc. Would you agree?
ReplyDeleteI think the author's use of the word moral is misplaced, at least in philosophical terms. The "sense deep down" does not form a logical argument.
ReplyDeleteI regard force in this sense as being synonymous with the different forms of power, so not just physical but also economic and intellectual and persuasive, which don't seem to have been considered. For example, if you persuade someone less intelligent than you to give you something that is rightfully theirs against their best interests, is that any more moral than taking it by threat of violence? Also, if retaliation justifies violence, then initiation becomes a moot point in real terms - from the moment we are born people are doing things to us constantly that we didn't consent to, decided before we were born or before we reach intellectual maturity, so we could justify pretty much any violent action if we could trace it back to the victim having had an impact upon ourselves at some point.
On what basis do libertarians define private property? If you own property, you have forced someone else not to have access to it. And how are private property laws to be enforced without the use or threat of force? Also, how do they resolve the conflict of two people's rights (where the two cannot come to agreement) without the initiation of violence, if not through a third party who has been designated as arbitrator? To be honest, the statements you quoted above I would have thought to fit more with anarchist viewpoints than libertarian...
When you say that we don't have the right to delegate the power of initiation of force against others, I think you need to consider the social contract we undertake as being part of a country/society with such rules - we agree that we will give up our right to not have force initiated upon us, if it is an end justifying a means. And rights is a tricky term - its a much more American idea as they have the Constitution which lays out their rights, while in Britain our legal system works (generally) on telling people what they're not allowed to do rather than what they're entitled to, so we have far fewer "rights".
DeleteAight, thanks! Loads of issues and concepts to deal with. I'll make a seperate post to answer all of them. I hope you don't mind!:)
DeleteFInally came around to write the post.
DeleteHere you go:
http://libertarianuni.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/response-to-josh.html