The Case Against Libertarianism

post by Zero Contradictions · 2024-08-03T05:05:34.471Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

This is a link post for https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/case-against-libertarianism

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Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds Liberty and the Non-Aggression Principle as its core values. Libertarians seek minimal and/or minarchist governments.

The Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle is typically defined as an ethical rule prohibiting aggression (or actions that violate negative rights). But there are lots of disagreements among Libertarians regarding what the NAP prohibits, allows, and mandates since “aggression” is not clearly defined.

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comment by Viliam · 2024-08-03T18:10:19.851Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

If the justification for the NAP ultimately appeals to consequences, then why not evaluate the actions and specific rules you make based on the consequences themselves, rather than some general rule that doesn’t always work out?

One problem with consequentialism is that you can never say whether something is good or bad, unless you have a model of the entire universe. Because for every good act X, it is possible that there is an alien spaceship at the opposite end of galaxy watching us, determined to destroy us with overwhelming force if we do X.

And if we try to avoid this by saying "well, we should only evaluate the evidence we have, using our best judgment", you still get the problem that different people have different evidence and different judgment. Ultimately, no one can agree on what is good and what it bad.

For organizing society, it is nice to have a rule that actually gives you answers. Maybe it's not optimal, but what are we comparing it against -- a rule that cannot be used at all?

(Of course, your following arguments against NAP still apply.)