Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Andy G's avatar
4dEdited

Thanks much for this.

The only thing I can think of that you left out would be libertarians who align with Ron Paul in particular, and more generally those who align with the non-MAGA GOP.

I suppose they are somewhat covered under “libertarian conservatives” - especially the latter - but I’m not sure Ron Paul would describe himself as such. I describe myself as a “libertarian conservative” and/or a “‘conservative libertarian”, but do not consider myself a Ron Paul guy.

I do find it interesting that there is no “neat” way to describe/clump most of these differences in the same manner in which you identify 4 distinct flavors of left libertarianism.

Perhaps this is because most of the people who are attracted to libertarian ideas - hardcore Randian Objectivists perhaps excepted - are more open-minded and attracted to ideas than to tribes?

Expand full comment
Joe Mintoff's avatar

Re Consequentialist vs Deontological, ... I think an importantly new way of arguing for libertarianism is Intuitionist, eg Michael Heumer (Problem of Political Authority) and Dan Moller (Governing Least). The first two approaches are basically foundationalist—ie, they assume a (perhaps singleton) set of principles, and show that L'ism follows. The new approach relies instead on intuitions about private cases—to the effect that we would not accept in private life the sorts of things governments do regularly—and then rebuts the attempts by opponents (social contract, democracy, etc) to argue that government is special. This is an attractive approach. People find the private cases more plausible than any grand principle(s), and, in my view, their attempts to argue that the government is special are very often feeble.

Re Libertarians vs libertarians, ... Again, there is an assumption here, that the libertarian wants to make society more libertarian. Clearly, they will /want/ this to be so, but they may not want to /make it/ so, since this does seem like a rather collectivist goal, and, more importantly, life is short and the chance of success long. So, amongst libertarians who are /not/ members of a Libertarian Party, it is worth adding those whose goal is rather to make /their own lives/ better approximate what they would be in a libertarian society. Eg, selective law-breaking. Thus, some laws are consistent with (or required by) libertarian principles (eg, against force, fraud), or create a practice I am happy to contribute to (eg, I am actually quite happy for part of my taxes to go to public health services)—I do what these laws require, not because they require it, but because it is a good idea anyway. However, other laws are neither consistent nor attractive (eg, in my case, laws relating to the use of public bushland)—I feel no compunction in breaking them, if I can get away with it.

Expand full comment
63 more comments...

No posts