Libertarianism and assassination

Today I published a new article on the ethics of the Soleimani assassination at Nolan Chart, "Libertarianism and Assassination." Here is the abstract:

The targeted assassination of guilty people  is ethically superior to war. The assassination-by-drone policy of the Trump regime is ethically bad for the same reason, and therefore morally wrong, and libertarians are right to condemn it.

Read it here:
Libertarianism and assassination
by George J. Dance
https://www.nolanchart.com/libertarianism-and-assassination

The morality of rule-breaking

Rule-Breaking is Necessary and Moral - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - David Kelley, Atlas Society:

September 3, 2017 - "By 'rules' I mean self-contained prescriptions about concrete actions or situations, telling you what to do or how to do it. Fasten your seat belt. Don't smoke in elevators. Don't have sex on the first date. Don't drive over the speed limit. Don't hit below the belt. For many rules, there is a rationale provided by some broader principle. But when rules take the place of principles, as is happening more and more often today,... don't let them get in your way....

"Large regions of social life that ought to be governed – and to a large extent used to be governed – by principles of courtesy, justice, and mutual respect have now been bureaucratized by rules. Movie theaters find it necessary to inform their patrons that talking during the movie is forbidden. Interactions between men and women in the workplace are now regulated by sexual harassment rules that attempt to replace the principle of respect and the exercise of judgment....

"Because they are so concrete, no set of rules could possibly cover every situation and action to which the corresponding principle applies. This defect is particularly serious in ethics, the field that provides the broadest and most fundamental level of guidance for human action.

"The advantage of principles is the advantage of concepts: They unite an open-ended number of particular cases under a single abstraction. Of course we pay a price for this ... one has to apply a principle to a particular case by the exercise of judgment, taking account of the specific facts about the context.... But this points to a second defect of rules....

"Rules are formulated for specific contexts, but they never fully specify the nature or limitations of that context. As a result, rules invariably have exceptions and they often conflict with each other. Someone trying to follow the rules without the benefit of broader principles will have no way to determine when he is faced with an exception, or how to resolve a conflict.... The exercise of judgment cannot be eliminated from human life, and the attempt to do so by erecting a network of rules has destructive consequences in public as well as private affairs.

"There is a final defect that rules have in virtue of their concreteness. It is the most serious defect of all, and ... most pronounced in the realm of ethics: Unless rules are anchored in principles, they cannot be rationally justified.... They can be accepted only on faith or authority – i.e., as arbitrary edicts....

"In social contexts, rules laid down by an authority are sometimes necessary to prevent conflicts among people.... But even in this context, rules have all the defects we discussed: they cannot cover every situation, they have exceptions, and if they are detached from rational principles they are an arbitrary expression of will.... Rules that are arbitrary or issued chiefly as a means of asserting authority invite rule-breaking by those independent enough to bridle at subjection to another's will....

"We do need objective standards. But objectivity requires principles, not rules. The choice is to be principled, acting on one's own understanding of reality, or to be ruled – by an explicit authority or by the cramped and encrusted dictates of tradition. For anyone who values his own life and his own autonomy, that's an easy choice."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/rule-breaking-is-necessary-and-moral/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=push_notification
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Reconciling freedom and morality

Freedom Is Essential For True Morality | Foundation for Economic Education - Alex Salter:

March 19, 2017 - "C.S. Lewis once explained the different aspects of morality by using the metaphor of a flotilla. Every ship must be well run on its own, but each must also coordinate with all the others so that they avoid collisions and stay in formation. Finally, the fleet must be set on a destination, which constitutes the purpose of their journey. This is a helpful way to think about morality regarding self, others, and our ultimate end.

"The personal aspect of morality ...  is about the cultivation of virtue.... An efficient and well-run ship is like a virtuous person.... There is one crucial difference, however: a ship’s crew is run hierarchically, under the command of a captain. But a person, in order to be truly virtuous, must be free to cultivate the virtues, or not.

"There is no virtue in being temperate when you are being forced not to indulge. There is no virtue in being charitable when someone is forcing you to give up what is yours. Virtue can be guided by cultural traditions and social institutions, but it cannot be coerced. A virtuous man must also be a free man.

"The interpersonal aspect of morality is more about rule following. These rules are important because, like the rules governing ships in a fleet, they prevent us from 'colliding' with each other.... Here too, liberty is essential....

"A society of domination will be a society that never reaches its full potential in the human sciences, physical sciences, and creative arts. Liberty affords us the greatest space possible to pursue our projects, in a way that enables us to live well with one another.

"Finally, there is the question of ultimate ends.... This will necessarily be the most contentious since the idea of a final end for man often goes in tandem with a specifically religious view of man’s vocation....

"But having a final end does not obviate the need for liberty. Freedom remains essential. To paraphrase Lord Acton, freedom is so precious that God will not override it, even when we badly misuse that freedom. In other words, we can’t get where we’re going if we’re not free to walk the road. I think this is a point on which religious, spiritual, agnostic, or even atheist persons can agree.

"Thus, freedom is essential to a genuinely good human life at all the levels of morality. In my view, the classical liberal tradition remains the keeper of the flame of liberty, and I want to spend the rest of my career advancing classical liberalism as a research program. I look forward to sharing with you what I find."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/freedom-is-essential-for-true-morality/
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Ayn Rand and altruism

What Rand Meant by Altruism | Foundation for Economic Education - Gary M. Galles:

January 31, 2017 - "February 2 is best known as Groundhog Day. But it also marks the birth of one of the most praised and criticized thinkers of the past century – Ayn Rand. Rand sold more than 30 million books. Atlas Shrugged has been ranked behind only the Bible as an influence on readers’ lives. She has also been stridently attacked for issues such as her militant atheism. But perhaps least understood has been her full-bore rejection of altruism....

"Altruism has commonly been held up as the standard for moral behavior. But Rand rejected it, asserting it was 'incompatible with freedom, with capitalism, and with individual rights,' and therefore "the basic evil behind today’s ugliest phenomena.'

"That head-on collision arises from French philosopher Auguste Comte, coiner of the term altruism. The altruists.org website says he believed 'the only moral acts were those intended to promote the happiness of others.' Comte’s Catechisme Positiviste asserts that altruism 'gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence,' and, therefore, 'cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such a notion rests on individualism.'

"In Comte’s view, any act performed for any reason beyond solely that of advancing someone else’s well-being is not morally justified. That implies taking a tax deduction for a charitable act strips it of its morality.... Something as seemingly innocuous as feeling good about doing good also fails Comte’s joyless standards. Even 'love your neighbor as yourself' fails his unlimited duty of altruism....

Rand’s 'virtue of selfishness' was a response to Comte’s demand for complete selflessness. Not only is a requirement for everyone to completely disregard themselves an unattainable ideal, it is self-contradictory. You cannot possibly sacrifice yourself fully for me, while I am also sacrificing myself fully for you. And if no one has any intrinsic value, why would the results, even if possible, be meritorious? With Comte as a starting point, more attention to people’s own well-being – more selfishness, in Rand’s terminology – is the only way to move toward recognizing value in each individual and significance in each life.

"Comte’s conception of altruism is also inconsistent with liberty, which was Ayn Rand’s focus. The duty to put others first at all times and in all circumstances denies self-ownership and the power to choose that derives from it. Everyone else maintains never-ending presumptive claims on every individual, overriding any rights they may have. In contrast, benevolence involves voluntary choices to benefit others of one’s own choosing, in ways and to the extent individuals choose for themselves.... The key distinction is between benevolence’s individual discretion, which recognizes our rights over ourselves and our resources, and altruism’s unconditional requirement to always sacrifice for others.

"An omnipresent duty of self-sacrifice also makes people vulnerable to manipulation by those who disguise power over others as 'really' a means to attain some noble goal. The desire to sacrifice for the good of others can be transformed into the requirement to sacrifice to the desires of leaders."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/no-ayn-rand-did-not-want-us-to-be-selfish/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=push_notification
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The Non-Aggression Principle

''The Non-Aggression Principle"
by George J. Dance
Nolan Chart, September 1, 2013

"Where libertarians are united is in the realm of ethics: that is, of interpersonal morality, or how we treat one another. What unites them is agreement on a single deontic moral rule, or principle, called the Non-Aggression Principle:

The non-aggression principle (or NAP ...) is a moral stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate.... Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another.

"Or in the classic formulation given by atheist libertarian Ayn Rand in her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged:

Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate — do you hear me? no man may start — the use of physical force against others.

"Libertarians use that principle axiomatically, to derive the ethical rules (or maxims) that restrain their conduct: Don’t kill. Don’t hurt. Don'r rape. Don’t enslave. Don’t steal. Don’t lie or cheat. From such maxims derive the notion of human rights. If it is wrong (for any person A) to kill a another person (B), then B has a right to life (with respect to A). If it is wrong for A to enslave B, then B has a right to liberty against A. If it is wrong for A to steal from B, then B has property rights against A....

"NAP-based rules can be found in other systems of ethics, both religious and secular.... Indeed, if Rand and other libertarian philosophers (such as Herbert Spencer) are correct, no human society could have arisen without widespread ethical understanding and acceptance of many of the implications of NAP.

"Does that mean that all those who believe in any of those ethical systems are libertarians? Almost, but not quite — only to the extent their ethics were based on NAP — and historical moral systems have always been NAP-based not only imperfectly, but also inconsistently. As promulgated by kings, lords, or priests, they always built in exceptions for the kings, lords, or priests themselves....

"Much if not all ... chaos can be laid at the door of states and other groups of people who have traditionally been exempted (usually by themselves) from following NAP. Libertarians propose an ethical system that consistently applies NAP; they would like to see everyone obliged to follow that principle without exception. That constitutes the one fundamental difference between libertarianism and earlier forms of NAP-based ethics." 

Read more: http://www.nolanchart.com/article10405-the-nonaggression-principle.html

Do Rights Exist?

Do Rights Exist?: by George J. Dance, Nolan Chart

Saturday, May 11, 2013 - "Libertarians believe in universal, individual, human rights. But rights cannot be observed: we cannot see, hear, touch, or smell them, or detect them with any kind of instruments. How, then, do we justify claiming that they are not just an idea, but actually exist?

"One reasonable answer would be: we are justified in believing that rights exist if there is evidence that they do, and no evidence that they do not. The only available evidence is testimonial – people speaking and acting as if rights exist – and it is not reasonable to believe something simply because of testimonial evidence, if there is other testimonial evidence to the contrary. If, however, there is no contrary evidence – if all the testimony is to the same effect – then it is reasonable to believe the only conclusion supported by any evidence. We can observe whether that is the case regarding the existence of rights."

Read more: http://www.nolanchart.com/article10244-do-rights-exist.html
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