When Libertarians Go Bad
"Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.[2] The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive.[3] (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)?[4] The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)"
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Not all Libertarians share these views.
I'm curious what a Libertarian counter to these ideas would be. The article makes a perfecly valid point that there are limitations to a parents "legal" responsibilities to a child. Many current legal responsiblities are clearly arbitrary and coercive. However, without a moral underpinning that is viewed as universal, how can a Libertarian avoid the slide into the ugly selfishness this article espouses?
Not so much "not all Libertarians" rather, NO Libertarians.
I read this article along the lines of Mises' attempt at "philosophical purity." Sort of like when Kant says lying is always wrong, even to prevent a murder.
However, if it will help you feel better 'bout me and my fellow Libs (when we get angry, we're Mad Libs, but then we make no sense and everyone just laughs at us) the argument falls apart later in the paper.
When discussing the implied contract of bringing a child to life, they dismiss it with an example of "saving a child from a fire," and saying they are the same thing. I think this is categorically false. Not only does the knowledge of the responsibility of having a child come into play (I think Mises actually goes against the Libertarian notion of taking responsibility for your actions by setting up a plank based on ignoring the responsibility of child birth), but there is simply no real comparison between saving a life and creating one.
So the Libertarian response to the Mises argument is simply to ignore it as a bad one.
I'm finishing--slowly--David Friedman's THE MACHINERY OF FREEDOM, an anarcho-capitalist primer of sorts. I haven't made the time for the Rothbard article; life's too short for reading two tediously academic attempts at standing reality on its head.
That said, I appreciate the value of their work as a basis from which the limits to liberty can be rigorously deliniated and debated. Friedman--like Rothbard, I believe--is an anarchist and a capitalist, and sees almost all human relationships as either consensual or coercive, with very little "grey". Our relationship as citizens with our government is, according to Friedman, coercive, because we do not choose the laws under which we live, nor do children choose the parents to whom they're born.
Ideally, Friedman's conception of liberty extends to children, too, 'though he acknowledges many are unprepared for it, and that no child should be allowed to run away until he or she is--wait for it--10!
At about this point reading began to seem an exercise in futility, although I found his subsequent takes on private adjudicators and protection agencies replacing our courts and cops intriguing in a sci-fi sort of way.
Anyway, the point, I think, is this: It's tempting to dismiss contemptuously the implications of lives freer than ours are today, but it's those implications that create the basis of dialogue that makes all arguments stronger. Friedman is quick to point out that a truly libertarian society may not necessarily be a better one; it simply will be freer.
I'm finishing--slowly--David Friedman's THE MACHINERY OF FREEDOM, an anarcho-capitalist primer of sorts. I haven't made the time for the Rothbard article; life's too short for reading two tediously academic attempts at standing reality on its head.
That said, I appreciate the value of their work as a basis from which the limits to liberty can be rigorously deliniated and debated. Friedman--like Rothbard, I believe--is an anarchist and a capitalist, and sees almost all human relationships as either consensual or coercive, with very little "grey". Our relationship as citizens with our government is, according to Friedman, coercive, because we do not choose the laws under which we live, nor do children choose the parents to whom they're born.
Ideally, Friedman's conception of liberty extends to children, too, 'though he acknowledges many are unprepared for it, and that no child should be allowed to run away until he or she is--wait for it--10!
At about this point reading began to seem an exercise in futility, although I found his subsequent takes on private adjudicators and protection agencies replacing our courts and cops intriguing in a sci-fi sort of way.
Anyway, the point, I think, is this: It's tempting to dismiss contemptuously the implications of lives freer than ours are today, but it's those implications that create the basis of dialogue that makes all arguments stronger. Friedman is quick to point out that a truly libertarian society may not necessarily be a better one; it simply will be freer.
I agree with UBlo that the analogy of saving a child and birthing a child is weak. However, that is not a central point to the argument. I see the Rothbard argument as fairly consistant if you start from an assumption that contracts are the only (or main) driver of human responsibility. I think it falls apart in the face of a higher morality. But then I think all philosophical constructs fall apart if they don't aknowledge a higher morality. This is an example of that.
I'm not sure how "anarchist" is defined in Muscles's view. It seems that Rothbard is trying to create a very organized system in which morality is replaced by contractual agreements. Is that anarchy? I agree strongly with the idea that libertarianism would make us more free, but not necessarily better off. That is why I see it as an essential ingredient to a better America, but greatly lacking when it stands on it's own. Rothbard's article shows some of the reasons why.
I think the challenges from the two libertarian comments imply that they too are uncomfortable with a pure (or extreme, you pick the qualifier) libertarian philosophy . They (quite prudently) would rather see it as an influence and not a complete system. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Friedman's take on anarchy is laws without government, made and enforced through a free market economy in which you pay who you choose to protect you and your rights.
What your rights are depends upon who you pay to protect you, and who they pay to adjudicate your legal disputes. So no police departments, no criminal courts, and, in theory, no coercion.
What Friedman says will keep these protection agencies from making themselves into shake-down artists is competition and the unwillingness of adjudicators to do business with bad guys.
Like Rothbard, Friedman sees the free market as the most reliable indicator of the values we share, and it is, therefore, the means to morality; it is not, however, intrinsically moral. That. perhaps, sounds like moral relativism, but he argues that we all share basic personal and property rights on which we'd agree freely, if given the liberty to pursue and protect them through exchanges to which we mutually consent, not taxes that are coerced from us.
As UBlo suggests, this is the fringe, but I oversimplified my earlier comment about Friedman and runaways. Emancipation would be a process, which I assume he'd have an adjudicator oversee, in which children would be required to demonstrate over a year's time whether they can support themselves and then, if I remember correctly, parents after an additional year are no longer responsible for their child. He believes, again, that few children would demonstrate the self-sufficiency necessary to emancipate themselves at such an early age, but that a child who could do and, more importantly, wants to do so, must really hate home enough that it's the best option available.
I remain unconvinced by all of the above ideas for what I'm sure are obvious reasons, but as an intellectual exercise, I like starting from zero.
This line may be dead, but I thought I'd address two things. One, that Libertarainism be a part of the system, but not a party in the system. Since no one but the extreme is comfortable with a pure (extreme) version of any philosophy, why should it be any different for Libertarians? Because the Libertarians come from actual positions, where Dems and GOPers come from whatever the polls say is good for them, they make easier targets, but keep in mind, this is philosophy, not a religion. We can disagree about what any of it means within the context of the larger points.
Two, as I read Mises, with my above caveat we're on the same page. I take the point that having a child is an implied contract. If you have a child, you take on the "contract" of raising the child. Its a very well known consequence with well defined roles, expenses, expectations, and duties. Nothing hidden, and lots of precedent. As I said, Libertarianism is big on accepting responsibility for your actions, there is no greater cause/effect than having a child. For some reason, the article in question avoids this line, or at least tries to quickly dismiss it.
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