The Rational Animal

Back when I was still pretty much a straight line Objectivist, I had heard several criticisms of libertarianism. Libertarians are inconsistent, they said. They view liberty as axiomatic, some of them are altruists and collectivists, and some of them (gasp!) are even anarchists!

Of course now, being an anarchist, I find myself more sympathetic to the libertarian movement and interacting with those involved with it on a fairly regular basis. However, the criticism that many libertarians view liberty as axiomatic is still valid.

Libertarianism, like any assertion beyond the most fundamental metaphysical claims, is not an idea that is true simply in and of itself. It is up to libertarians to demonstrate the validity of libertarianism through logical argument, which means that libertarians need a philosophy underlying their ideas about liberty to demonstrate that liberty is the valid approach to human interaction.

While I really enjoy the works of Murray Rothbard, he is particularly guilty of divorcing libertarianism from the underlying philosophical disciplines of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. In The Ethics of Liberty, he provides a somewhat convincing, though very short and undetailed, argument in favor of individual self-ownership.

His argument is essentially this; there are three possible ways to deal with the ownership of people. Self-ownership (e.g. individualism), collective ownership (e.g. collectivism), and class ownership (e.g. aristocracy). He starts with the premise that there must be a universal moral code to determine which of these viewpoints is correct.

Aristocracy is eliminated pretty much immediately, since one class of people owning another is inherently non-universal. Collective ownership would require that some group of people handle distributing resources, since it is impossible for everyone to own exactly an equal share of everyone else without some governing body to organize it. This essentially creates class ownership again and this is eliminated.

This leaves self-ownership as the only universalizable approach to the ownership of people. It is from here that Rothbard proceeds to justify property rights, the non-aggression principle, and the libertarian outlook.

The problem with this approach is that it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, it never adequately demonstrates that there even is a universal moral code that should govern the ownership of people. It never explains what ownership consists of. It never explains why one should follow this univeral moral code.

I am not saying that I believe there is no universal morality or that I agree with the is-ought dichotomy. I am simply saying that Rothbard did not adequately address these questions with his approach to libertarianism.

More recently, Stefan Molyneux of Freedomainradio.com has self-published a book on his ethical system, which he calls universally preferable behavior. It’s a relatively short read, and his argument is basically a more fleshed out version of Rothbard’s argument.

The central idea behind universally preferable behavior is that, for an ethical premise or theory to be true, it must be possible to practice it consistently. For example, “rape is good” can’t be true because then people being raped would be bad to resist rape (since rape is good), and if they don’t resist then rape is no longer occurring (which is also bad since this is also stopping rape), which means that the ethical theory “rape is good” is literally impossible to actually practice universally and consistently.

While it is true that an ethical theory that is impossible in practice can’t possible be valid, Molyneux fails to provide a solid justification for the premise that universal ethics even exist. He provides several arguments for it in the book, but if you read his arguments and think about it, you’ll find that these arguments only succeed in demonstrating that, perhaps between two individuals, a mutual (not necessarily universal) ethic exists.

Another interesting thing about Molyneux’s ethical theory is that he actually accepts the is-ought dichotomy. While he will say that he can demonstrate, logically, that “rape is bad” is a universalizable ethical theory, he will not say that one ought to not rape people. To me, this kind of removes the whole point of having an ethical theory. What about his ethical theory is true, if its not making any claims on how people should act? What aspect of reality is he even describing?

Now that we’ve briefly discussed Rothbard’s and Molyneux’s ideas behind the justification of libertarianism, I want you to note that there is a word that is conspicuously absent in both cases. That word is happiness.

At no point do either Rothbard or Molyneux assert, at least with their ethical theories, that libertarianism will make you happier. Or that you ought to pursue a libertarian society because it best promotes your values. Or that your life will be better if we can achieve a libertarian society.

This separation of libertarianism from values and happiness, I think, is the rotten core holding libertarianism back. This idea that somehow liberty and freedom are good for their own sakes or for scientific reasons, completely independent of whether they help you live a happier life.

Indeed, imagine if I walked up to you and said I could logically demonstrate that it is moral to punch yourself in the face right now. I’m certain that no matter how logical my argument might sound, you would scarcely be convinced. The reason for that is that punching yourself in the face is painful, and detracts from your happiness.

While Ayn Rand made her mistakes, her defense of libertarian ideas as a necessary precondition to achieving happiness is absolutely vital to the success of libertarianism, and harkens back to the days of classical liberalism. It seems many libertarians have forgotten that the words “the pursuit of happiness” were not placed in the Declaration of Independence just because they sound nice.

There is a small movement of libertarians who also see this problem and who, like Rand, derive their inspiration from the works of Aristotle and other various Ancient Greek philosophers. In particular, Roderick T. Long has been doing great work along these lines, and I encourage everyone to listen to his material on mises.org.

Another potentially important work is being written by Geoffrey Allan Plauche for his Ph.D. dissertation. Entitled Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society, it appears that Plauche is following in Rand’s footsteps by attempting to provide a complete philosophy to support libertarian ideas that is largely inspired by Aristotle. You can read some incomplete portions of it on his website.

It is important that we have a valid justification for libertarianism that is rooted in the desire to live a happy life. Few people are going to be convinced to do something if it is antithetical to their own happiness, and frankly it would be irrational to request that they do. Fans of Rothbard and Molyneux, I highly encourage you to read some of the material written by Ayn Rand, as well as the gentlemen I mention above.