Libertarianism?

The nomination of libertarian ophthalmologist Rand Paul to run as the Republican candidate in the 2010 Kentucky senatorial race has generated lots of fun media events, like this interview with Rachel Maddow. There has simultaneously been some coincidental public discussion of libertarianism, e.g. from the always-too-snarky Paul Krugman. Recently the Washington Post publicized a letter-to-the-editor [Rand] Paul wrote to the Bowling Green Daily News. The excerpt that is causing the most controversy is this:

[A] free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to attack people based on the color of their skin.

I have almost nothing interesting to add to either the common expressions of disgust in response to political/economic libertarianism, nor the intellectual arguments against it. I’ve enjoyed some recent posts on this by Matt Yglesias.

Nothing to add except…

I think the ambiguity about the concept of “freedom,” which is highlighted by Yglesias and others, is a serious problem for libertarians. Just take the Paul quote. It is not clear what distinguishes his statement from something like: “A free society will abide unofficial, private assault, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.”

I take it that libertarians, and probably many of us, make a distinction between whatever is being violated in the case of assault, and whatever is being violated in the case of discrimination. Likewise, we might locate the relevant distinction between what is being protected in each case. So you get people giving principles like, the government is responsible for protecting citizens from physical harm, and radical conclusions like the government’s sole responsibility is protecting freedom[?] and providing military defense.

It is obvious that we can make distinctions of this sort. Surely there is a distinction between, as Paul says, public and private establishments. And we can make distinctions between notions like “positive” and “negative” liberties, or rights.

Sadly, in political discourse, it is often sufficient just to make conceptual distinctions without giving any justification for why they should matter. And first principles like “The government shouldn’t tell business what to do” are non-starters, because they are make-believe. I think they are just as make-believe as their liberal enemy principles, such as “governments should provide all essential services to its citizens.” I would advocate a more pragmatic, consequentialist approach to public policy. I’d start with something like, “What are the pros and cons of enforcing non-discrimination at lunch counters?” After the pros massively swamp the cons, I then wonder, “Okay, I don’t have the power to beat up all the racists up every time they discriminate, and they’re too dumb to accept arguments, so what kinds of tools do we have around here to achieve this?” In the case of 1964, we had a Congress, a president, a judicial system, police, and so on.

Descriptive claims like “Restaurants, unlike state capitals, are private” are about as relevant to the non-discrimination question as “Restaurants, unlike state capitals, are social hubs.” I’m sure restaurants are all kinds of things, but the case for enforcing non-discrimination at lunch counters was overwhelming.

This blog post hints at a fairly nihilistic belief of mine that I rarely express, which is that political principles are mostly make believe. I think that communities, including states, should be constituted according to standard moral principles. If you think political philosophy is autonomous from ethics and can still give us normative principles, explain yourself. If you hold the more common view that political philosophy is some sort of extension or application of ethics, then I agree that this is what political philosophy should be. However, in that case I think blanket statements about the role of “government” – an institution admitting of infinite variety – fail to count as political philosophy.