This story reminds me of a party I went to back in my high school days. I was bored to tears, but embarrassed to leave early. “If only I were a solipsist,” I remember thinking, “I could just leave.” After thinking about that for a minute, I had a second thought: “I can still leave even if I’m not a solipsist.” So I left.
Tag Archives | Ethics
Thickness Unto Death
One objection I often hear raised against thick libertarianism is that bundling libertarianism together with other values and commitments is dangerous to the cause of liberty, because a) it tends to alienate potential supporters of libertarianism who don’t share the additional values, and/or b) libertarians whose support for liberty is conjoined with an equally strong support for other values face a greater risk of being tempted away from their libertarian commitments by the possibility of using state power to promote the other values.
The first thing to point out about this objection is that it is not strictly correct to call it an objection to thick libertarianism. On the contrary, this objection is itself a version of thick libertarianism (we might call it “anti-thickness thickness”). After all, its objection to bundling libertarianism with other values is that such bundling makes the achievement and/or maintenance of a libertarian society more difficult – and that is precisely a thicklib kind of concern, specifically a form of what Charles formerly called “instrumental thickness” and now calls “strategic thickness.” After all, the non-aggression principle by itself doesn’t call on anybody to promote libertarianism; so as soon as one starts arguing that libertarians qua libertarians should reject X (where X is not by itself inconsistent with the non-aggression principle) on the grounds that X makes it harder to promote libertarianism, one has moved from thin to thick libertarianism. All that one can consistently do in defense of thin libertarianism is argue that libertarians need not bundle liberty with other values; to argue, more strongly, that they should not is to turn thicklib by bundling libertarianism with a commitment to no-bundles-but-this-one.
The fact that this purported objection to thick libertarianism turns out to express thicklib concerns itself is not a decisive reply, however; for the objector can simply redescribe the objection as directed against forms of thick libertarianism other than itself. Still, the skinnylibber who brings this objection has admitted the relevance of thicklib concerns, so we have our foot in the door.
Turning to the specific objections: it’s doubtless true that thick libertarianism alienates some potential pro-liberty folks who don’t like the extra values in the bundle; but it’s equally true that thin libertarianism alienates some potential pro-liberty folks who have trouble feeling the attraction of libertarianism until they see how it integrates with their other concerns. One simply has to weigh these considerations against one another, and against other thick concerns (not just strategic but also application, grounds, and consequence), to see how it all sorts out.
As for the worry that devotees of Liberty-plus-X might be tempted to violate liberty in order to promote X, well, so they might – but a commitment to X, if it’s the right X, might well help to guard against certain sorts of temptation to sacrifice liberty. (See, e.g., Rothbard’s argument that a rejection of utilitarianism makes one’s commitment to liberty more reliable.) If a commitment to X instead undermines one’s commitment to liberty, then either one has chosen the wrong X – one that is not properly bundled with liberty (and so one that is itself condemned on thickness grounds) – or else one has misunderstood the relation between liberty and X. After all, thicklib values are supposed to be ones that have a natural fit with liberty, values that it would be unreasonable or counterproductive to pursue by nonlibertarian means.
Hodgskin, Lum, and Molinari Online
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
I’ve just posted an 1842 work by English individualist anarchist Thomas Hodgskin titled Peace, Law, and Order; Hodgskin objects to the common conjoining of these three terms, on the grounds that law is the greatest threat to peace and order, not their guarantor.
I’ve also finished posting American mutualist Dyer Lum’s 1890 Economics of Anarchy, along with a shorter work by Lum from 1887 titled On Anarchy. These works deal with many of the same issues as Tandy’s book, though Lum is a bigger fan of cooperative association than Tandy and is not quite as firmly committed to nonviolent methods.
Elsewhere in the libersphere, Shawn Wilbur has also located and posted an 1890 anti-tariff piece by battlin’ Belgian Gustave de Molinari titled “The McKinley Bill in Europe.”
Plus or Minus
William Gillis rejects natural rights theory as a basis for libertarianism, on the grounds that “as a theoretical physicist I find its assumptions (like the distinction between positive and negative action) about as reasonable as golden thrones in the clouds and holy trinities.”
I must gently point out that if an idea is inherently crazy when it shows up in the premises, it cannot suddenly become okay when it shows up in the conclusion (even if the conclusion is now derived from different premises). Or, equally, if it is okay in the conclusion, then it can’t be inherently crazy in the premises. In other words, when an idea (such as the distinction between positive and negative action) is all-pervasively presupposed in one’s policy proposals, one cannot coherently reject the distinction as part of the basis for those proposals.
Incidentally, I don’t know what the grounds for William’s skepticism of the positive/negative distinction are, but some critics of the distinction argue that if one’s decision (be it a decision to “kill” or a decision to “let die”) is part of the overall constellation of circumstances that is sufficient for someone’s death, then there is no interesting metaphysical (not just ethical) distinction between the two cases. I think this argument is confused; here’s a story from Fred Miller that’s useful therapy for such confusion:
A and B are hitchhikers who catch a ride with C. C drops A off in D-town and B off in E-town. In D-town, A sees F standing near the edge of a cliff; A pushes F off the cliff; F falls into the river and drowns. In E-town, B sees G standing near the edge of a cliff; G falls off the cliff on his/her own; B could save G, but instead stands and watches G drown.
Now in order to claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, one must in strict consistency also claim that there is no interesting metaphysical difference between C’s relation to F’s death and C’s relation to G’s death; C either makes a causal contribution (and we’re not talking about moral responsibility, just causal contribution) to both deaths or to neither. But no one (presumably) will seriously make such a claim. Obviously C makes an (inadvertent) causal contribution to F’s death but not to G’s. (To deny this, I maintain, is to fail to recollect the grammar of the concept of causation.) Hence there must also be a difference between A’s relation to F’s death and B’s relation to G’s death, QED.
Two Reviews
1. The July/August 2008 issue of the New Individualist features a review by Will Thomas (“Atlas, Seen Through Many Eyes,” pp. 52-55) of Ed Younkins’ anthology Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion. 
Here’s what he says about my contribution (which he kindly includes among the “best essays” that “accurately represent Rand’s distinctive worldview while bringing something new to the table”):
In “Forced to Rule,” philosopher Roderick Long looks at how Atlas Shrugged may have been in part a response to Plato’s dialogue the Republic. The Republic portrays a collectivist utopia where material life and education are sharply controlled by the government. All must act from duty, not self-interest – even the rulers, who should be wise men forced to rule against their inclinations. Long points out that this is strange, since Plato’s appear to focus on individual flourishing. How can there be individual happiness without any freedom? But Plato was a dualist, holding that real knowledge, truth, and virtue proceed from a realm of Ideas only dimly reflected in material reality, and this made him pessimistic about practical affairs. Long shows how Rand strikes back at this conception of man in Atlas Shrugged and details implicit references to Plato in the text. Rand reject the dichotomy of mind versus body and its attendant splits of spirit versus matter, love versus sex, and art versus engineering. In the climax of Atlas, Rand puts Plato’s doctrine to the test as the villains try to torture John Galt – the best and wisest of men, “an engineer and philosopher” – to make him rule them. (Spoiler: It doesn’t work.)
2. Joel Parthemore has an online review of my colleague Kelly Jolley’s excellent book The Concept ‘Horse’ Paradox and Wittgensteinian Conceptual Investigations. While the book’s topic may appear narrow and arcane, “its target,” as Parthemore notes “is nothing less than the nature of structured thought itself.”
Marriage Catch-22
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
A friend sends me a link to this story about several counties in California responding to the recent legalisation of same-sex marriage by refusing to perform any marriage ceremonies at all, whether same-sex or hetero. My friend asks whether this is a positive or negative development from a libertarian standpoint; although the motive may be homophobic, isn’t this policy a step in the right direction, i.e., toward getting the state out of the business of defining and regulating marriage, leaving it to private contract and custom?
Well, I think it’s a mixed bag. Recent events have actually gotten the separation of state and marriage onto the table in broader-than-libertarian circles, which is surely a good thing even if some of the motives are questionable. But under present circumstances, county governments refusing to perform marriages has a serious downside.
As things stand, the state imposes a variety of legal burdens on unmarried couples from which married couples are exempt; these range from higher taxes to restrictions on inheritance, refusal of right to make medical decisions on a partner’s behalf, and, in the case of citizen/alien couples, liability to deportation for the alien. In this context, when one branch of the state, charged with providing the only legal means of avoiding certain forms of aggression imposed by another branch of the state, refuses to provide those means, it arguably becomes an accessory to the aggression – while still collecting salary from the taxes of the victims, to boot. Now if county employees wish to resign their tax-funded jobs, that’s another matter. But in the meantime, it’s as though my henchman Sluggo says he’s going to rob you unless my other henchman Thuggo says not to, while Thuggo remains silent (and collects his share of the take).
Incidentally, another friend who’s doing academic research on marriage asks me for citations to articles (preferably though not necessarily in academic journals) by “prominent libertarians” who argue that the state should stay out of marriage. Any suggestions? (So far all my friend has found is Jennifer Roback Morse’s argument that a libertarian state should not permit divorce! For the honour of libertarianism we must do better.)