This post at PL and this post at AriArmstrong.com discuss the question of how to properly define libertarianism and how to draw the lines that separate libertarian thought from other viewpoints. Armstrong makes the argument that we can simply use induction to view what it is that libertarians say, and then extrapolate from that what the definition of libertarianism really is: if we “look at what libertarianism is, rather than attempt to reconstruct it according to [a] prior definition,” we can more accurately understand it; we ought to “abandon [our] rationalistic view of libertarianism.”
My problem with this is not so much using induction as determining the relevant evidence. Take Catholicism and birth control, for example. If we were to poll Catholics, we might (using induction) conclude that Catholicism accepts the use of birth control. But, in fact, the content of Catholicism depends on the catechism, which is drafted by the Vatican, and according to the Vatican, birth control is not allowed. To the degree that a given Catholic person uses birth control, he or she is deviating from “true Catholicism.” One could argue that even this is not an accurate picture of Catholicism, because any such widespread divergence from explicit values, which is known and accepted by the relevant authority, becomes in a sense incorporated into the doctrine so that “true Catholicism” includes not only a ban on birth control but a certain degree of expected sin in that regard. This is rather like the law and economics scholars who say that there is an efficient level of, and a demand curve for, murder or other crimes. On one level, that’s true. But it would give an inaccurate picture of the law of murder, just as the widespread sinning of Catholics would give one a misleading picture of the doctrine of Catholicism.
D.A. Ridgley, on the other hand, would reject the attempt to find an objective meaning of libertarianism entirely. There is no essential core of libertarianism, just certain “family resemblances” among those ideological doctrines describing themselves as libertarian. Ridgley is focusing mostly on what tactics we can’t use, so he doesn’t explain just how we do determine what is a libertarian, and the problem with this approach is that we cannot then know whether two bodies of doctrine do, in fact, share “family resemblances.” Taking this approach too seriously would lead to the point where every individual qualifies as his own ideological class and we cannot make any general descriptions, because we can’t form relevant concepts.
I prefer an approach that uses core philosophical conceptions and traces them over time to arrive at (admittedly rough-around-the-edges) ideological categories. As I’ve argued many times in the past, today’s libertarianism, or classical liberalism, originated in the era surrounding the English Civil War, and, prior to the French Revolution, was most clearly articulated in the works of Milton, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, and the like. Whatever these and other early libertarians might have differed about, they shared a core conception of the individual as the primary political unit—an end in himself, as they say, instead of a means to the ends of others—as well as the source of the legitimacy of political society. Jefferson put it succinctly in a letter to Madison: “What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of individuals.”
As I see it, these are the key insights that we can trace in the history of thought as “liberalism.” The French Revolution was a formative event in the history of liberalism, of course, because it involved not only a political revolution as in America, but a social revolution as well: liberal intellectuals came to believe that simply getting government out of the way would not solve the problem, and that social institutions and mores would also have to be changed (often coercively) in order to give people “real” freedom, and this split is reflected today in the division between modern liberals on one hand and classical liberals (or libertarians) on the other. (John Dewey’s article “The Future of Liberalism” is very much on target about this point.)
Given that, I have two points:
1) Libertarianism rests on the premise that the individual has a moral right to his own freedom. (On this view, of course, Objectivists are clearly libertarians.) I do not recognize a libertarianism that is truly “utilitarian” or “consequentialist.” As far as I can tell, a consquentialist libertarian always ends up going one of two ways: either he ends up an outright collectivist, as did Mill, or in his most embarrassing episode, Ludwig von Mises, or he secretly (perhaps ashamedly) assumes that the individual has a moral right to his own freedom. The latter makes sense, of course, since it’s hard to be a “consequentialist” without knowing at what consequences you’re aiming. But many such people think that it’s impossible to prove the validity of ends and that we can only talk about means, and the more rigorous about this they are, the more confused they get.
2) As I’ve written before, there was another political philosophy in addition to the two liberalisms—one which saw society as the core consideration in politics. Those who rejected the principles of the individual as an end in himself, and held instead that he exists to serve “society as a whole,” and who are today called “conservatives.” These include people like Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, Robert Nisbet, and so on. To some degree these overlap with collectivists who trace their roots to the modern liberals, but modern liberal collectivism and conservative collectivism differ in an important respect: the modern liberal holds that collectivism is necessary for the goal of liberating individuals; the conservative holds that collectivism is necessary to prevent that liberation—to “stand athwart history yelling ‘stop!’” These people hold that society determines what rights individuals have. It follows from this that we have no business telling other societies how they can treat individuals within those societies. This is why the doctrine of “states rights,” or what they think is “Federalism,” appeals so strongly to them. They oppose centralized government, not because they believe in individual freedom, the way libertarians do, but because they believe in safeguarding the authority of the state—a collectivist authority to dictate the terms on which individuals can live their lives.
When I describe Ron Paul as a conservative, or at least as an ally of conservatives, this is what I mean. While on some occasions he has shown a dedication to state’s rights as an instrumental good for accomplishing the libertarian goal of individual liberty, on too many others he has shown a fetish for state power in and of itself that is basically conservative. His view on flag burning, for example: he would “enthusiastically” support a constitutional amendment allowing Texas to persecute people for expressing themselves. That is not a libertarian, but a conservative, position.
Obviously induction is a proper tool when trying to describe libertarianism, but it is misleading to simply go to people and ask them whether they’re libertarians and what they believe. That will give you valid and useful data for describing what people describing themselves as libertarians believe, and in one sense that is libertarianism. But in another sense it is misleading, since the text, or the narrative of libertarianism is handed down from person to person over time, just like an oral tradition, and it can therefore be labeled, traced, categorized, described, and distinguished from its cousins and from other ideologies that differ from it. Just like a species of animal evolves over time, and yet can be said to have certain traits, and just as the elephant is different from the donkey, despite their shared ancestry.
