[840] in libertarians
Imposing Values
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Wed Mar 22 15:17:27 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 15:13:25 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
|>rosed
|> >vimrich
|> > I disagree with government having any say in the cultural agenda of
|> > the country. I'm a Christian in not a particularly liberal denomination
|> > (Congregational) but the GOP's talk of "family values" is the scariest
|> > thing in years to me. Not because it's right or wrong, but because
|> > government setting values like that is scary no matter what they are.
|>
|> But the government has to set values. This is the biggest most bogus
|> idea that many libertarians hold -- that somehow libertarianism doesn't
|> involve imposing your values on anyone. Passing a law prohibiting
|> wife-beating, that is imposing your values. Putting someone in jail for
|> theft, that is imposing a value.
Libertarianism imposes only what I call "meta-values" that is "you can have
any values you want so long as you do not deprive other's the
opportunity to choose themselves." The values imposed are things like
"neutrality" (whats legal for one must be legal for all) or "cooperation"
(coercion is not an acceptible method of social interaction).
Limbaugh always makes the argument you just made, and he is wrong.
Murder is illegal not because we impose the value "life is good" but
because we impose the meta-value "all should be able to determine
for themselves whether life is good" (murder deprives this). In fact,
relativist libertarians would say that "life is good" can ONLY have
meaning in the sense of such a personal decision (preference). Similarly
for theft, wife-beating, and so on.
The actual values themselves; honesty, family, individualism, collectivism,
work ethic, profit motive, absolutism, relativism, athesim, Christianity
and so on, are not mandated. Libertarians believe in "spontaneous
order" for social relations. Whatever emerges out of the variation
and selection freely choosen by society is fine. This is why atheists
and Christians can work together on it. Neither of us wants to impose
our values. There is no guarantee for capitalists that people will not
turn over all their property to communes and collectives by choice. There
is no guarantee for atheists that people will not all embrace Budda or
Christ. Libertarians don't care so long as it's all by choice.
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| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT, Dept. OE | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
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| MIT LP: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/home.html |
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