Liberty is not a virtue because it’s not a feature of a person. The question I think you intend to ask is, why is liberty desirable? Most people who believe that it is argue that people can’t develop into mature, responsible, moral, independent beings with meaningful lives in its absence. Off the top of my head, the two most compelling arguments I’ve heard can be found in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Ludwig von Mises’ The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. This concept was also the backbone of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, and though the details of her arguments are objectionable on many levels, her underlying point is powerful and warrants attention.
I realize that I’m responding to a post that is nearly four and a half years old, but I’ve just now seen this and feel compelled to respond.
Risk remains the same. It is our attitude toward the risk, and the control we perceive ourselves having over that risk, that changes.
Recognizing the dignity of other people, i.e. their liberty, follows from the doctrine of humanism. Being a humanist is a choice, but if you call yourself one, it follows that the dignity of other people has to be respected. And coercion infringes on basic human dignity. Sadly too many people call themselves humanists without taking that requirement seriously.
Bostwick says:
(Limited) Government doesn’t keep people save from murder. At best all it can do is to punish murderers effectively. Of course it can keep people safe from hunger in the absolute sense, but it can punish thiefs and fraudsters, who ultimately will drop down economic productivity and hence cause hunger.
On another note:
Being free is important, because only free people can really act ethically. Doing something one is forced to do by threat of punishment isn’t acting ethically.
“Being free is important, because only free people can really act ethically. Doing something one is forced to do by threat of punishment isn’t acting ethically.”
i think this is spot on. If so, does it imply that liberty is the means to virtue (and of course, vice)? Or in others, can virtue only exist because of liberty?
It is the case that freedom is a consequence of justice. If we established an order that would be completely just, we would have also, just by so doing, established an order in which everyone enjoys complete freedom. Also it is only in an order where there is complete justice that there may be complete freedom. This may be why we ‘simply know’ that freedom is good. We would have more of it, if there were more justice in the world, and to have more justice would cleary be a good thing.
My take is…
Liberty is a necessary condition for pleasant, productive human interaction. In the sense that everything that results in a desireable outcome is a “virtue,” then we could probably call liberty a virtue.
But ethical eudaimonists like Roderick Long (and me - no relation) tend to use the word “virtue” to mean an ethical ideal. I don’t think liberty fits that definition because liberty isn’t something people can “be.” We can’t “be” liberty, but we can enjoy the benefits of liberty. So, liberty is probably more of an environmental condition than it is an ethic.
Behaving in all the ways that enable liberty to thrive ina community is most certainly a virtue, or a set of virtues.
because it is most efficient.
+1
that is a great way to make the argument that liberty issue virtue, IMO, since I view waste to be a vice.
A commitment to non-aggression is a virtue. Should any group adopt it, its product is human freedom.