I recently watched an interview with Milton Friedman. At the end of the interview Friedman said that his greatest wish is that he has somehow caused freedom to spread in the world. Then he added that he doesn't know why freedom is a virtue but that it "just is". I consider myself a Classical Liberal and have always sought to maximize liberty, but if I were to explain to people why freedom is a good thing I'm not sure I could come up with any kind of answer besides that I highly value freedom.
In your opinion why is liberty a virtue?
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
Liberty is not a virtue, it is a right. To recognize other men this right is a virtue, humility.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
True liberty requires you give up a little security (assume risk) in an attempt to fulfill your goals dreams and desires. Far right (anarchism), and far left (socialism) require the most or the least amount of risk.
That's easy, liberty is a virtue because it allows people to realize their potential and gives people the ability to achieve it, should they choose that path. Contrast that with tyrrany. Tyrants use force to keep others in line and are beholden to the will of another. That's why a true libertarian is mindful of the rights of others. It's a short step from disregarding the rights of others to disregarding all rights.
When I think of virtue I think of action-related descriptions like courage, selflessness, and leadership. Liberty is more of a general social condition.
Expression of its benefits are usually found in ethical or economic approaches. Regarding the former, though, make sure your ethics are consistent with your worldview. A lot of people screw that up.
"Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears." - Gian Carlo Menotti
Hans Hoppe has given a rather more rigorous treatment. If we assume that a system of ethics must be viable and universally applicable, we can derive logically that each person owns themselves (is free). The only other possiblities are universal communism, where everybody owns an equal part of everyone else, (which is not viable, you'd need permission from every other person just to breathe); and slavery, where some people own other people (this viable, but is not universally applicable).
For a book length treatment, you can do no better than "For a New Liberty" - Rothbard. I love the free mp3 files read by Jeff Riggenbach. Highly recommended.
-Drab
I can't agree more with imperator03.
Just a little addition, though. By definition, virtue can mean 'moral excellence (goodness)' or an 'effective force or power'. Liberty fits perfectly well with either meaning. It is no less a means as it is as an end.
Stranger: Liberty is not a virtue, it is a right. To recognize other men this right is a virtue, humility.
Neither is Freedom a Right. Since a Right is an entitlement to something i.e. a payment, an action, a good etc.
Freedom or Liberty are conditions under which someone lives and operates. It is the condition to master ones own affairs. That requires ability and absence of constraints. Virtues can be helpful with mastering these affairs. And respect for a system of Rights is one way how liberty in society may be protected against constraints.
Solid_Choke: In your opinion why is liberty a virtue?
Being in favor of "limited government" is a very difficult position to defend because its self contradicting. If government is good at keeping people safe from murder, why can't it keep them safe from hunger?
The obvious answer is that governments that try to keep people safe from hunger fail. Less often stated, but no less valid, is that governments that try to protect people from murder fail.
People say that governments protect their citizens from invading armies, but the way they do it is by sending wave after wave of their citizens to their deaths. Any fool can realize this is not the best way to protect yourself, so these same governments have to enslave(draft) their citizens in order to make sure they follow orders.
Liberty is good because its the absence of aggression. Most people are aware of many reason why crime is bad, but what most do not realize is that governments employ criminal methods. You want to "limit" government because you want to limit the violence it commits. I want to destroy government to eliminate all the violence it commits.
The world without governments is not a utopia, there would still be crime. But there would be a massively reduced amount, I can't even begin to describe the magnitude of the difference.
I believe in liberty and oppose government because I oppose violence.
Peace
JonBostwick:Being in favor of "limited government" is a very difficult position to defend because its self contradicting. If government is good at keeping people safe from murder, why can't it keep them safe from hunger?
The standard neoclassical answer would be that defense is often non-rivalrous and non-excludable, thus making it a public good. Food is both rivalrous and excludable.
Grant:The standard neoclassical answer would be that defense is often non-rivalrous and non-excludable,
The standard neoclassical answer would be that defense is often non-rivalrous and non-excludable,
But its not true. If a police officer is at your house arresting a bad guy, he can't be at my house.
Grant: JonBostwick:Being in favor of "limited government" is a very difficult position to defend because its self contradicting. If government is good at keeping people safe from murder, why can't it keep them safe from hunger?The standard neoclassical answer would be that defense is often non-rivalrous and non-excludable, thus making it a public good. Food is both rivalrous and excludable.
Time will tell
JonBostwick:But its not true. If a police officer is at your house arresting a bad guy, he can't be at my house.
No, but by arresting the bad guy at my house, the police have removed a potential threat from yours as well. An arrest has positive externalities. Of course, defense really isn't a very good example of a public good, in my opinion. Things like disease, information, and clean air are much more "public". Or, if you accept that nukes can deter attacks, a nuclear arsenal is much more "public" than conventional defense.
tim:The funny thing being that government are supposed to be needed to protect us from ... others government (since only governments make war). The snake eating its own tail. Now the fact that defense can be qualified as a public good doesn't make a coercive entity necessary.
States are hardly alone in their ability to make violence, and nature of the things they war with is not relavent to their own justifications for existing. We don't say all business firms are useless because some firms exist to oppose others.
Grant: JonBostwick:But its not true. If a police officer is at your house arresting a bad guy, he can't be at my house.No, but by arresting the bad guy at my house, the police have removed a potential threat from yours as well. An arrest has positive externalities. Of course, defense really isn't a very good example of a public good, in my opinion. Things like disease, information, and clean air are much more "public". Or, if you accept that nukes can deter attacks, a nuclear arsenal is much more "public" than conventional defense.
No offense but public goods theory is laughably fallacious. If there truly was such a thing as a free loader problem the US would be required to invade Mexico and Canada and demand tribute in exchange for us policing the world.
Public goods theory is nothing more than a thinly disguised and weakly supported attempt to justify why current government intervention should continue.
The American military invaded Iraq on behalf of the Iraqi people. Public good theory would suggest that the Iraqi's owe the Americans money because they all reap the "benefits" of having their country destroyed. We can't let them exploit the American tax payer.
And of course clean air is not a public good. Its a private good, thats why you're not allowed to send your pollutants into my property.
JonBostwick:No offense but public goods theory is laughably fallacious. If there truly was such a thing as a free loader problem the US would be required to invade Mexico and Canada and demand tribute in exchange for us policing the world. Public goods theory is nothing more than a thinly disguised and weakly supported attempt to justify why current government intervention should continue.The American military invaded Iraq on behalf of the Iraqi people. Public good theory would suggest that the Iraqi's owe the Americans money because they all reap the "benefits" of having their country destroyed. We can't let them exploit the American tax payer.
The economic calculation problem applies to both private and public goods provided by government. As you mention, the government is woefully bad at supplying meeting the defense demands of its "customers", just as it would be very poor at feeding them. However, this deficiency does nothing to promote or detract from public good theory. Neither does its use to support government expansion.
It does call into question the wisdom of assuming government should fund public goods, but it doesn't solve the free rider problem itself.
JonBostwick:And of course clean air is not a public good. Its a private good, thats why you're not allowed to send your pollutants into my property.
Right, but absent legal enforcement which requires polluters to pay for rights to pollute each of their victims (a framework which would be nigh-impossible in today's world), air is neither rivalrous or excludable.
Grant:Right, but absent legal enforcement which requires polluters to pay for rights to pollute each of their victims (a framework which would be nigh-impossible in today's world), air is neither rivalrous or excludable.
All we would have to do is remove all statutes and let courts settle it case by case. And its feasible with either private or government courts.
Grant:It does call into question the wisdom of assuming government should fund public goods, but it doesn't solve the free rider problem itself.
I dont believe in a free rider problem, the only problems I care about is crime. If someone recieves some benefit through my actions, I am not automatically entitled to assign a dollar price to the benefit and demand payment.
If a meteor is flying towards the earth and I divert it with a laser I built am I allowed to demand in payment an arbitrary percentage of all current or future wealth that I have preserved? That would not be an economic transaction, only coercion. Clearly, if I wish to be compensated for my service, I must confince people to willingly pay for it. I have two methods to do this 1) ask for donations or 2) find a way to withhold the service from non-payers.
JonBostwick:I dont believe in a free rider problem, the only problems I care about is crime. If someone recieves some benefit through my actions, I am not automatically entitled to assign a dollar price to the benefit and demand payment.
I don't mean to be getting an "ought" from an "is" here. I am talking about a problem of funding, not a moral problem of what is or is not just.
JonBostwick:If a meteor is flying towards the earth and I divert it with a laser I built am I allowed to demand in payment an arbitrary percentage of all current or future wealth that I have preserved? That would not be an economic transaction, only coercion. Clearly, if I wish to be compensated for my service, I must convince people to willingly pay for it. I have two methods to do this 1) ask for donations or 2) find a way to withhold the service from non-payers.
Yes, thats exactly what I mean. The basic problem presented by public goods theory exists, and it is an entrepenurial one of: "how do I make money providing this public good?". Fortunately, the entrepreneur has more tools than the above two you listed, but as I see it the problem is not totally solved by current economic thought.
Grant: Fortunately, the entrepreneur has more tools than the above two you listed
Fortunately, the entrepreneur has more tools than the above two you listed
Like what? Do they violate the non-aggression principle?
Solid_Choke: I recently watched an interview with Milton Friedman. At the end of the interview Friedman said that his greatest wish is that he has somehow caused freedom to spread in the world. Then he added that he doesn't know why freedom is a virtue but that it "just is". I consider myself a Classical Liberal and have always sought to maximize liberty, but if I were to explain to people why freedom is a good thing I'm not sure I could come up with any kind of answer besides that I highly value freedom. In your opinion why is liberty a virtue?
What do you mean by "liberty"? If you mean why is libertarianism morally correct, it is because it is the moral foundation of man's existence.Look here at a blog I just posted this morning,
http://catholicmarketanarchy.blogspot.com/2007/12/brief-and-general-proof-of-property.html
The Origins of Capitalism
And for more periodic bloggings by moi,
Leftlibertarian.org
JonBostwick:Like what?
Assuance contracts are the only other tools I know of to fund purely public goods (which are rather rare).
JonBostwick:Do they violate the non-aggression principle?
No.
Liberty is not a virtue because it's not a feature of a person. The question I think you intend to ask is, why is liberty desirable? Most people who believe that it is argue that people can't develop into mature, responsible, moral, independent beings with meaningful lives in its absence. Off the top of my head, the two most compelling arguments I've heard can be found in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Ludwig von Mises' The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. This concept was also the backbone of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, and though the details of her arguments are objectionable on many levels, her underlying point is powerful and warrants attention.
I realize that I'm responding to a post that is nearly four and a half years old, but I've just now seen this and feel compelled to respond.
Risk remains the same. It is our attitude toward the risk, and the control we perceive ourselves having over that risk, that changes.
Solid_Choke: I recently watched an interview with Milton Friedman. At the end of the interview Friedman said that his greatest wish is that he has somehow caused freedom to spread in the world. Then he added that he doesn't know why freedom is a virtue but that it "just is". I consider myself a Classical Liberal and have always sought to maximize liberty, but if I were to explain to people why freedom is a good thing I'm not sure I could come up with any kind of answer besides that I highly value freedom.
Recognizing the dignity of other people, i.e. their liberty, follows from the doctrine of humanism. Being a humanist is a choice, but if you call yourself one, it follows that the dignity of other people has to be respected. And coercion infringes on basic human dignity. Sadly too many people call themselves humanists without taking that requirement seriously.
Bostwick says:
(Limited) Government doesn't keep people save from murder. At best all it can do is to punish murderers effectively. Of course it can keep people safe from hunger in the absolute sense, but it can punish thiefs and fraudsters, who ultimately will drop down economic productivity and hence cause hunger.
On another note:
Being free is important, because only free people can really act ethically. Doing something one is forced to do by threat of punishment isn't acting ethically.
"Being free is important, because only free people can really act ethically. Doing something one is forced to do by threat of punishment isn't acting ethically."
i think this is spot on. If so, does it imply that liberty is the means to virtue (and of course, vice)? Or in others, can virtue only exist because of liberty?
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
It is the case that freedom is a consequence of justice. If we established an order that would be completely just, we would have also, just by so doing, established an order in which everyone enjoys complete freedom. Also it is only in an order where there is complete justice that there may be complete freedom. This may be why we 'simply know' that freedom is good. We would have more of it, if there were more justice in the world, and to have more justice would cleary be a good thing.
My take is...
Liberty is a necessary condition for pleasant, productive human interaction. In the sense that everything that results in a desireable outcome is a "virtue," then we could probably call liberty a virtue.
But ethical eudaimonists like Roderick Long (and me - no relation) tend to use the word "virtue" to mean an ethical ideal. I don't think liberty fits that definition because liberty isn't something people can "be." We can't "be" liberty, but we can enjoy the benefits of liberty. So, liberty is probably more of an environmental condition than it is an ethic.
Behaving in all the ways that enable liberty to thrive ina community is most certainly a virtue, or a set of virtues.
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"[A]ll collectivist doctrines are harbingers of irreconcilable hatred and war to the death." -- LvM
because it is most efficient.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
@Esuric
+1
that is a great way to make the argument that liberty issue virtue, IMO, since I view waste to be a vice.
A commitment to non-aggression is a virtue. Should any group adopt it, its product is human freedom.