When the non-libertarian is asked the question “What is a libertarian?”, besides possibly saying “Ron Paul”, the most common answer is almost always “Ayn Rand.”
That cheering enemy of state control and bureaucracy, who bashed all of those in the pocket of government, she suggested that perhaps a man would be better off free of the tyranny of state control and, just as importantly for her as a militant atheist, from that of religion.
With the first part, I agree. With the second, not so much.
In Rand’s case, her philosophy, that splinter of secular libertarianism called “Objectivism”, was nothing more than a rip-off version of St Thomas Aquinas’s Natural Law tradition, but without the justification for existing.
It is strange that this woman, who spoke of the ills of thinking that Jesus died for our sins and the evilness of using “faith” instead of “reason”, was taking her ideas from one of Christianity’s finest thinkers.
When Objectivists and atheist libertarians talk about natural rights from an atheist perspective, that turns those rights into nothing more than things that exist just “because”, or it is a “fact of reality.”
They have no reasoning, because it makes no sense to believe in rights while being an atheist.
Do these atheist libertarians not realise that John Locke, the core founder of the idea of natural rights and of the non-aggression principle, based his thought on the belief that all men came from Adam and Eve, and as such had no right over each other?
And what about the great liberty minded documents made in countries that we libertarians like myself and Objectivists hold dear? Were they not written by Christians?
Magna Carta was written by Christians, and specifically by Catholics. The Petition of Right was influenced by the Christian Edward Coke, and was written by Christian men.
The United States Constitution was, in a good way, a rehashed version of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.
Freedom under law, and natural rights, both come from an exclusively Christian idea of equality and the Golden Rule.
When atheist libertarians make the case of an “anti-theistic libertarian” society, then they make, to paraphrase Russell Kirk, the curious assumption that most human beings, if only they were properly schooled, would think and act precisely like themselves.
That simply is not the case. What happens to a society that loses God is that men are left to worship only the State.
That allows the leader of the State decide the value of human life, which tends to be as much value as a person would give the core of an apple.
That was why Stalin hated the Russian Orthodox Church, and why Hitler, who was an atheist using religion to gain votes, started to replace Christian holidays with Pagan holidays. They wanted to be the Gods of Men.
When a normal man is deciding the rights of other men, then they are not really rights at all. It is easier to justify overruling freedom when you do not have anything to stop you.
The Church stops that by giving the human being worth through absolute rules given to us by the Divine Ruler who is not hungry for power.
Of course, I do not believe that the Christian Faith has been perfect for protecting the rights and liberties of the people. In fact, it can be very prejudiced when it wants to be.
But I am not the kind of person who requires a perfect solution. We only have trade-offs in life, and I for one would rather have the Christian trade-off rather than the obvious flaws of atheism.
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Ayn Rand was strongly opposed to the idea of natural rights as she makes clear in her essay on rights. For her – individual rights were NOT supernatural endowments:
“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A — and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.”
https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights/Mans-Rights
My problem I find is that it is the exact same as what Locke said minus God and minus calling it “Natural Rights”. As is the case in his “Two Treatise of Government”. It doesn’t have any logical sense to me. Her rights from the rational “being” are just her viewpoint. I’ve met many who “rationally” think that we have a “Right to a job” or “Right to food”.
Furthermore Rand still pretty much stole her ideas from Aquinas and his work even if she used a special term for it. She had no original ideas.
What major (or even minor) philosopher hasn’t “stolen” his ideas from his predecessors? Philosophical systems hive off contemporary or past systems. You could just as well say that Aquinas “stole” his ideas from Aristotle.
Or that Christianity stole dualism from the Neoplatonists. And so on.
Ayn Rand had a great many original ideas – her view of axiomatic propositions and how they are generated, her arguments for realism, and certainty, perception and abstraction, of differentiation and integration, of the origin of values and objectivity, her comments on art, literature and history…she was a most extraordinary genius-
http://aynrandlexicon.com/
Indeed, but maybe it’s better then to accept that there are no “rights” imbedded in the Universe, whether by God or “nature”. After all, to assert their existence is to assert something which has never actually existed; nobody has ever in human history lived under conditions ascribed to “natural” law- with for instance a right to life, right to property, or anything else.
The desire is to “prove” some moral system is not just preferable, but can be deduced from nature by reason alone. This cannot be done, which is what David Hume correctly observed over two centuries ago.
Liberty is a preference, and “rights” are a human construct which enable that preference to be achieved to various degrees. We can just recognise these rights as a social system and work to persuade others to share our preference.
Well all but a militant atheist shouldn’t bash uniquely christian ideas.
The belief in “rights” has taken the form of a superstition. To some people, they’re like the laws of physics, always present (as they imagine it), even if nobody is aware of them. In fact they’re social constructs that are always backed by force, even if the force part of it is not always obvious.
IanB If you wish to live is it a mere “preference” that you need to eat food?
Yes. The fact that I want to do something doesn’t mean you can generate a right from it. Just as the desire of a lion to eat me doesn’t mean it has a right to, even if one can show that it is in its nature to desire to do so.
IanB I did not mention rights – I said need: If you wish to live is it a mere “preference” that you need to eat food?
Is it causally necessitated, by the fact of your existence as a living being, that if you choose to live you need to eat?
Why are preferences “mere”? It implies that a preference renders it unimportant. We are as is often the case in the Is/Ought problem.
Is it causally necessitated that if I am the only food available to the lion, that it eat me? What do you mean by “causally necessitated”? Is my preference (or the lion’s) for living rather than dying justification for any or some action which facilitates that preference?
Say, you have some food, and I have no food. You will not give me some of your food. What is the cause of action facilitated by my desire to stay alive? Can I steal your food?
A preference is “mere” because the word “preference” suggests that the choice is optional – “If you choose to live you need to eat – or, if you prefer, you may not. Either way – eating or not-eating – you will carry on living.”
The statement above is clearly false.
Eating is not a preference. It is a fact. It is a causally necessitated requirement for living. Not eating necessitates death not life.
“Is it causally necessitated that if I am the only food available to the lion, that it eat me?”
Yes.
“Is my preference (or the lion’s) for living rather than dying justification for any or some action which facilitates that preference?”
The lion has no choice. A choice to live or die is not an option for a lion.
It is a choice for you – because you have free will. IF you choose to live you MUST act.
“Say, you have some food, and I have no food. You will not give me some of your food. What is the cause of action facilitated by my desire to stay alive? Can I steal your food?”
Is that a typo? [I only ask because my answer would be different.]
Do you mean what is the “course of action” or “cause of action?”
The Law of Identity is not “a point of view.”
Read the whole article “Man’s Rights” above.
The core of the apple is where the seeds are.
> When the non-libertarian is asked the question “What is a libertarian?”, besides possibly saying “Ron Paul”, the most common answer is almost always “Ayn Rand.”
A false premise does not inevitably result in false conclusions, but it’s never a good place to start. Such is the case here.
In nearly all of your points you are either wrong, misguided, ignorant of history, or some kind of “getting it wrong”. Even when you show signs of having a clue, you approach Clue and bounce off of it without any elaboration, like one of those splendid synthetic bouncy balls hitting a Clue Floor. But I will congratulate you on writing an article without any spelling mistakes.
Personal criticism without substantiation seems petty and meaningless. Perhaps rather than attacking the author, with whom I have no connection, and with whom I completely disagree, you would state your arguments. It makes for much more productive discourse.
“The United States Constitution was, in a good way, a rehashed version of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.”
Three main biblical ideas – all articulated by St. Augustine – lie at the root of the U.S. Constitution.
1) The biblical fact of creation means that all human creatures – even rulers – are subordinate to their Creator and accountable to Him. Therefore, rulers themselves are under law. When they flout that law, they may be weighed, judged, and, when appropriate, resisted.
2) Within that framework of accountability, God grants freedoms, rights, and responsibilities. God is the source of our freedom, not Nature, not The State, and not Humanity-at-large. God grants liberties that human beings cannot retract; He ordains rights we cannot repeal, and delegates duties we cannot evade.
3) But the central – and distinctively Augustinian – premise of the Constitution is that we are fallen creatures, driven by our inner need to dominate others. Therefore we cannot be allowed to concentrate political power beyond a certain point. The power of domination and suppression available to fallen human beings through the instrumentality of the State has to be broken up, scattered, and prevented from centralizing.
In many ways, Augustine’s doleful assessment of humanity dominates the Constitution and the structure of government it describes. The Christian concept of the Fall shows its influence most visibly in three aspects of the American system, namely 1) federalism, 2) the separation of powers, and 3) representative government.
1) The principle of federalism reserves certain powers to the states, as part of the covenant by which the states bind themselves into the Federation. By definition, those powers are withheld from the central authority. Federalism is a deliberate blockade to the undue collection of power by the central government.
2) The separation of powers serves that same purpose internally. The authors of the Constitution divided the power of the central government into three parts, based on God’s three-fold rule of the universe as described in Isaiah 33:22. Isaiah revealed God as judge, lawgiver, and king, corresponding to the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. God can hold all three powers balanced in perfect rule, but fallen humans cannot. Therefore, the Constitution severs the three cardinal powers of rule from one another and distributes them to jealous stewards. The separation of powers is a deliberate blockade to the undue collection of power within the central government.
3) Representative government protects fallen human beings against their own tendencies to dominate and suppress by putting a buffer between State power and public whim. Representative government tempers the vox populi with deliberative wisdom.
Again, we sense the shadow of Augustine. Fallen human beings are not well served by giving them their way just because they want it. I believe it was H.L.Mencken who sardonically observed that true “democracy is based on the conviction that ‘the people’ know very well what they want – and deserve to get it, good and hard.” Representative government thwarts the erection of the populist idol. It is a deliberate blockade to the undue concentration of power in “the people”.
Both the American system of government and the individual freedoms it proclaims are steeped in the values and concepts of Christianity, because the system itself was designed and established by bible-believing Christians. It could not have been otherwise.
My own view on religion I summarize as “If you let me have my religion – or lack of it – I’ll let you have yours.” So, I’m quite happy to let Adam Young have whatever religion he wants. But he doesn’t seem happy to allow me to be a libertarian, without also subscribing to his particular creed. That worries me somewhat.
When looking back into the past as far as Aquinas, or even John Locke, it’s important to remember that back then almost everyone in Europe was religious. Religion was simply part of the “climate of thought.” So I find it hardly surprising, for example, that John Locke saw us all as descended from Adam, and made great play on it, particularly in the final chapter “Who Heir?” of his First Treatise. Adam (Young) seems to expect us to conclude that, because Locke was a great thinker and a Christian, it was his Christianity that made him a great thinker. That, for me, is a non sequitur.
One other thing I can’t agree with is the idea that people who don’t worship a god will inevitably come to worship the state. I certainly don’t worship the state! In fact, for me, anyone who feels a need to uncritically worship anything – be it the state, a god or anything else – has something a little amiss with him.
Agreed. The problem here is correlation and causation. It’s the same fallacy as saying that because the philosophers of liberty were white men, liberty requires whiteness and maleness. Or that they were Protestants requires Protestantism.
The other problem is the presumption that these values originated not only in Christianity, but from Christianity. Even if you accept this premise, this ignores the issue of where Christianity got them from. One can make an argument that Western European Christianity inherited these values from pre-Christian sources. For instance, the assumption that rule-by-consent originates in Christianity ignores its existence in pre-Christian (tribal Germanic) societies, especially as such values are notably absent from Christianity’s Levantine source.
So many assumptions in this article. all of which could inspire endless scholarly debate, both secular and theological.
The core of the apple is where the seeds are.
I do not think much of Ayn Rand as a philosopher, I never could do so, but at least she cited Aristotle and Aquinas did not add much of true note to that old philosophy. He was way better than Rand as a thinker, I agree, but oddly not as true in his conclusions.
Pristine liberalism allows for freedom of religion, of course. But part of that is to be free to say that religion is bunk.
It is false to think that natural rights require a caring theistic God.
Most men have worshipped nothing. Read Chaucer to see even pilgrims as de facto atheists even on their way to Canterbury. Later Christians adopted conentional morals. Christianity has no morality of its own. The early Christians held the end was nigh and no morality was needed for the dead could bury the dead. Those were the supposed last days. The Pastor Sellbydates of today forget that their message is now more than 2000 years out of date. An anarchist to the state is like an atheist to religion. Worship is a waste of time.
Liberals can use religion to respect the liberties of others by but it is not needed by all of us. Rand was a bit silly in her intolerance but it is not true that religion is a boon to all those who think. I could never credit religion. And morals never were Catholic, as you suggest Adam. They were conventional and today they are bourgeois. If thy right eye offends thee, tolerate it! That is common sense but alien to the rather perverse Christian creed that would have us to pluck it out.
I many see clear flaws in Aynâs writings but none in atheism as such. See _Atheism Explained (2008) David Ramsay Steele.
I agree with the article – there is no basis for moral/human Rights without Christianity (& Judaism I expect). As an atheist (by upbringing, not choice) I have to accept this – personally I go for sentiment-based Utilitarianism – being nice to people makes us feel good – but there is no absolute cosmic justification for this, or for anything really. The big problem is that atheists who accept reality tend to nihilism. Atheists who don’t tend to Maoism, cultural Marxism, and similar totalitarian atrocities. Religion is a good shield against this tendency.
“Magna Carta was written by Christians, and specifically by Catholics. The Petition of Right was influenced by the Christian Edward Coke, and was written by Christian men.” Etc. etc.
And this is supposed to imply that libertarianism needs Christianity? The author needs a course in basic logic. If it were shown that a majority of great libertarian thinkers were Freemasons, would that mean that libertarianism needs Freemasonry?
“Freedom under law, and natural rights, both come from an exclusively Christian idea of equality and the Golden Rule.”
“Exclusively Christian”??? The author is in fantasy land.
There is no truth in any religion, nor is that fact hard for most people to practically see.
A fact a bit harder to see is that no one ever believes in religion. All people act as if they are not even one bit religious.
There is no justification in any case, as Popper recently and quite rightly upheld. So there never was, or could be, any foundation of any epistemological sort. Saying religion can do it is simply futile. But we should be free to say such things. Free speech is quite liberal in the pristine sense.
David Hume correctly said that no one ever was amoral in his 1751 book. So nihilism is null-set just like unicorns are. But the novel _Fathers and Sons_ from which that rather silly term comes from had the fathers moaning about the student sons saying that science was value free, but that is not to say that humans, or the scientists, ever are; for they never can be. While we live we always have some values. Suicide is the only way out of that. No live person can be a nihilist, no more than one can be a full blown sceptic, a solipsist or any number of impossibilist memes they play about with on the college philosophy courses.
Adam Young’s article makes a lot of interesting points. But it is inaccurate to state that “freedom under law, and natural rights, both come from an exclusively Christian idea of equality and the Golden Rule.” Actually, the idea of equality under the law, freedom, the Golden Rule, and an elaborate code of private property rights all come from Judaism. In Genesis 18:25, Avraham tells God that He has to abide by His own rules of justice and spare Sedom if there are fifty innocent people there (later bargained down to ten). In other words, a ruler – even if that ruler happens to be God — is not exempt from his own laws. (This is the same point the Magna Carta made three thousand years later.) Five out of the Ten Commandments either directly or indirectly address the idea of freedom and private property. The book of Exodus is all about slavery and freedom. The Torah (Old Testament) is full of stories and laws about the centrality of private property rights, and it contains rules on how to adjudicate those rights. As for the Golden Rule, that was articulated by Rabbi Hillel before Jesus began preaching. Hillel was asked to summarize the whole Torah while standing on one foot: “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” Having said all this, Mr. Young makes important points in his essay, and I hope he keeps writing. The role of Christianity is just as vital as ever in the world today – especially when it fights for the ideals of freedom, limited government, and rule of law that the Founders cherished. But it is important to get the facts straight about the origins of the ethical and political principles that libertarians hold so dear.
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