Libertarianism Defended

Aeon rated it really liked it Jan 14, L rated it it was ok Jan 05, Anthony rated it liked it May 29, Garrett Watson rated it liked it Jan 23, Tim added it Feb 25, Barry Kayton added it Apr 06, Carmen Tourney marked it as to-read Apr 04, Mike marked it as to-read Jan 03, Michael marked it as to-read Feb 11, Cristiano marked it as to-read Apr 29, Bakunin marked it as to-read Jan 02, Adam Revay marked it as to-read Jan 27, Rachel Mccullaugh marked it as to-read Mar 07, Oolalaa marked it as to-read Mar 20, Ryan marked it as to-read Apr 28, Gerardo Caprav marked it as to-read May 04, Robert marked it as to-read Jun 01, Emily is currently reading it May 20, The most famous interpretation, again, seeks to ground property in the prior rights of self-ownership.

On this view, when people labor they quite literally extend their claims of self-ownership over external objects, thus drawing them into their rights-protected sphere. This argument suffers from well-known problems. For instance, since laboring is an activity, the idea of mixing it with an object seems at best a metaphor for something else.

But in that case, the argument is incomplete: More importantly, it simply is not true that mixing something owned with something unowned is sufficient for appropriation. As Nozick pointed out, if I pour a can of tomato juice that I own into the unowned ocean, I lose my tomato juice—I do not gain an ocean Nozick , pp.

Third, if labor-mixing really were sufficient for generating claims in objects, why should this be restricted to unowned goods? Why not say that mixing my labor with something already owned generates a claim of coownership Thomson , pp. In light of these and other objections, many have offered different defenses of private property. These justifications depend neither on accepting a prior thesis of self-ownership, nor on the affiliated thesis that self-ownership rights can be extended outwardly through labor.

Instead, these arguments point to the moral importance of people having security over external resources, whether this is understood in terms of support for political and civil liberties Gaus , our ability to be project pursuers or purposive agents Lomasky ; Mack , or the ability to be the authors of our lives Tomasi An influential line of argument ties the justification of property to the material prosperity and well-being that it brings about. Rights of private property serve to divide the external world into a number of discrete, individual parts, each exclusively controlled by its particular owner.

Organizing the social world in this way is preferable to collective use or ownership because it helps avoid collective action problems. Since these justifications of property do not rest on a prior principle of self-ownership, they are not committed to seeing property rights as in any way absolute, immune to just regulation, or even precluding any and all forms of taxation.

Despite what is sometimes suggested Freeman , virtually all libertarians that reject self-ownership as a starting point also accept that property rights need specification, can be instantiated in quite different, yet morally acceptable forms, and might be overridden by other moral considerations. Such views do not entail the impossibility of unilateral original appropriation either. Libertarians and their critics are concerned with the issue of original appropriation primarily because it demarcates a major fault line in political philosophy.

Such a view is viable if one can establish the possibility of unilateral appropriation, without essential reference to the existence of the state or law. Libertarianism is committed to a strong guarantee of basic liberty of action. However, even views that endorse the strongest possible form of self-ownership do not guarantee such liberty. For if the rest of the world natural resources and artifacts is fully owned by others, one is not permitted to do anything without their consent—since that would involve the use of their property.

Since agents must use natural resources occupy space, breathe air, etc. The question arises, then, what constraints if any exist on ownership and appropriation. Libertarian theories can be put on a continuum from right-libertarianism to left-libertarianism, depending on the stance taken on how natural resources can be owned. At one end of the spectrum sits the maximally permissive view of original appropriation.

This view holds that that there are no fair share constraints on use or appropriation Rothbard , ; Narveson , ch. However, this is not a very popular view, as it simply ignores the problem above: Such a theory does not live up to libertarian ideals very well. Nozick interprets the proviso to require that no individual be made worse off by the use or appropriation of a natural resource compared with non-use or non-appropriation.

But this interpretation is problematic for at least two reasons.

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This would be true even if the owners extracted almost all of the benefits of cooperation, and that seems unfair. Others interpret the Lockean proviso as requiring something like a sufficientarian requirement, such that people must have access to an adequate share of natural resources Lomasky ; Wendt This view might invoke differing conceptions of adequacy, such as well-being or the ability to be self-governing as in Simmons , At the other end of the spectrum, left-libertarians argue that it is implausible to hold that those who first use or claim a natural resource are entitled to reap significantly unequal benefits than others.

Natural resources were not created by any human agent and their value, they argue, belongs to all of us in some egalitarian manner. Thus, left-libertarians hold that natural resources initially belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner, or that legitimate holdings are subject to some equality-preserving constraint over time. What we might call equal share left-libertarianism—advocated, for example, by Henry George and Hillel Steiner —interprets the Lockean proviso as requiring that one leave an equally valuable share of natural resources for others.

Individuals are morally free to use or appropriate natural resources, but those who use or appropriate more than their per capita share owe others compensation for their excess share. This constraint applies not only at the point of appropriation with subsequent holdings being altogether unconstrained , but must be respected through time.

Others claim that the equality requirement also offset disadvantages in unchosen internal endowments e. Thus, Otsuka interprets the Lockean proviso as requiring that one leave enough for others to have an opportunity for well-being that is at least as good as the opportunity for well-being that one obtained in using or appropriating natural resources. In his discussion of appropriation, Locke invokes the idea of distributive shares only three times sections 31, 37, and All appear in the context of the quite different prohibition on letting things spoil.

In these cases, and in these cases alone, Locke sees appropriation as taking what belongs to others. His point is clear: At this point, left-libertarians often claim intuitive support for an egalitarian proviso. When multiple people are presented with a previously undivided resource, equal division is the intuitively fair approach. An objection, however, is that such intuitions apply only to circumstances that ignore relevant conditions.

For instance, while Otsuka is correct to claim that if two persons are stranded together on an island, equal division is the intuitive solution, this may not be true if one person arrived earlier, already cultivated, say, two-thirds of the island, while leaving more than enough for the second person to independently make a living, is willing to cooperate, trade, and so on.

In that case, the latecomer insisting that she has a right to half the island is not only counter-intuitive, but probably just wrong. The intuition of equal division becomes even less appealing if we imagine more than two parties, capable of production, trade, and cooperation, arriving at different times.

What such an equally good shot comes to, however, is much less clear.

Whatever interpretation of the proviso one accepts, however, libertarians left and right agree that once persons enjoy legitimate rights over their property, these are more or less immune to other claims of distributive justice. There is little room in the theory for thinking that certain distributions or material outcomes are morally significant as such. Thus, Nozick argues in his famous discussion How Liberty Upsets Patterns that because any system of property must allow gifts and other voluntary transfers, and because these will significantly upset whatever distribution is put in place, there is very limited room for concerns with distributional equality.

Since treating people as moral equals means respecting them as the holders of these rights, and since such rights will be exercised in ways that will not equalize material outcomes, forced redistribution counts as unjust. None of this is to say that libertarians are not concerned with outcomes at all. John Tomasi , p. This seems to overstate the matter considerably, but it is certainly true that many libertarians see their policies as promoting the general good, and this plays an important role in their justification.

Hence, libertarians are wont to point out that being poor in a free society is much better than being poor elsewhere, that markets in general do not work to the detriment of the poor, and so on. Libertarians are highly skeptical of political authority and state legitimacy. Since people are, quite simply, independent and equal beings, with none naturally subordinated to any other, states like all other agents ought to respect the moral rights of individuals, including their rights over their persons and their legitimate possessions.

For this reason, libertarians typically require something like voluntary consent or acceptance for legitimate state authority. Unfortunately, all states fail to satisfy this requirement for most of their subjects. As a result, they use massive amounts of force in ways that are morally impermissible.

States violate the rights of citizens when they punish, or threaten to punish, a person for self-regarding actions such as taking drugs, refusing to purchase health insurance, or engaging in consensual sexual relations in private. States violate the rights of citizens when they force, or threaten to force, individuals to transfer their legitimate possessions to the state in order to bail out large companies, provide for pensions, help the needy, or pay for public goods such as parks or roads. States violate the rights of citizens when they forcibly prevent them from innocently contracting and associating with others, exercising their religion, occupy certain professions because of their ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation, and much, much more.

In reply, libertarians typically argue that many of the effects of states are extremely negative. Moreover, many of the positive effects that states can bring about can also be obtained through voluntary mechanisms. Libertarians tend to be more hopeful about the possibility of anarchic provision of order, public goods, as well as charitable giving. Even though libertarians are generally quite hostile to state authority, this does not mean that the state cannot permissibly undertake certain minimal activities.

This includes most obviously the enforcement of individual rights and freedoms. Some libertarian-leaning theorists, such as Hayek , argue that it is legitimate to force people to pay their fair share of the costs of providing basic police services i. Since most left-libertarians see individuals as under enforceable duties to pay others for the value of their rights over natural resources, people might form organizations that, under certain conditions, could force individuals to pay what they owe for their rights over natural resources, and then transfer the payments to the individuals who are owed payments after deducting a fee for the service, if the person agrees.

Some even hold that such organizations could provide various public goods such as basic police services, national defense, roads, parks, and so on. The underlying idea is that, by providing such public goods, the value of the rights claimed over natural resources by individuals will increase, and their provision would thus be self-financing based on, say, increased land rents Vallentyne One popular argument for state authority holds that states can be legitimate if they are democratic.

Libertarians tend to be very skeptical about this view. A large body of empirical findings has shown that voters tend to be radically uninformed, ignorant, and indeed biased about political issues. And democratic deliberation does little, if anything, to improve this.

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Indeed, it seems like it is rational for people to remain ignorant about politics. In addition to voter ignorance, many libertarians fear the more general dynamics of state power. Thus, many government policies impose widely dispersed costs on the populace to confer localized benefits on a few, often politically well-connected elites.

Examples include the large-scale bailouts of financial companies and agricultural subsidies. Other Routes to Libertarianism 3. The Power to Appropriate 4. Two Arguments Against Libertarianism Defended. Seth Shabo - - Philosophia 42 1: Left-Libertarianism and Private Discrimination. The Problems of Postlibertarianism: Brooks - - Critical Review 8 1: What's Wrong with Libertarianism.

Jeffrey Friedman - - Critical Review 11 3: A Reply to Fried. The Principle of Rational Explanation Defended. Richard Double - - Southern Journal of Philosophy 31 2: Event-Causal Libertarianism's Control Conundrums.

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