I conclude that there are only two possibilities: 1. The speaker is an honest libertarian. [...] 2. The speaker has an ideological vision of what the society should look like [...] He uses the libertarian argument because its implications happen to coincide with his ideological position in this particular situation, but he would never accept a libertarian argument in any other situation in which it would imply something disfavored by his ideology.
While I agree that strict adherence to libertarian principles is rare, it does not therefore follow that most appeals to libertarian principles are merely opportunistic argumentative ploys. Libertarianism is a continuum, not a boolean; it seems to me that people can simultaneously have both an ideological attachment to some particular vision of what they want society to look like, and also an ideological attachment to libertarianism, and that these conflicting desires get traded off against each other in some proportion. The end result is that people end up saying, “People should be free to do whatever they like, except x_1, x_2, … x_n, which are obviously harmful.” I agree with you that the x_i are not chosen on any sort of neutral, principled basis, but that only means that libertarian arguments have limited force, not no force. There are some things I disapprove of so strongly that I want them to be illegal, but that doesn’t mean I want everything I disapprove of to be illegal.
Libertarianism is a continuum, not a boolean; it seems to me that people can simultaneously have both an ideological attachment to some particular vision of what they want society to look like, and also an ideological attachment to libertarianism, and that these conflicting desires get traded off against each other in some proportion.
I agree that this is possible in principle, but from what I observe in practice, libertarian arguments have extremely low weight in such trade-offs, except for the tiny minority of principled libertarians, who form a small and reasonably well-delineated cluster. When it comes to issues that are otherwise neutral and uncontroversial, people will normally default to the libertarian position. However, as soon as an issue has any bearing on ideology, tradition, religion, ethnic identity, political power, economic interests, status hierarchy, etc., etc., people normally assign near-zero weight to libertarian arguments, except insofar as they provide useful material for unprincipled rhetorical ploys.
This is especially true for the whole enormous cluster of controversial topics that involve sex, reproduction, marriage, and family. This is in part because these topics involve many questions of grave importance on which libertarian theory completely breaks down and can’t provide any sensible answers. (For example, what should be the mutual rights and obligations between parents and children? What should be the legal age of consent? What constitutes valid adoption? What’s the legal boundary between abortion/infanticide and murder? And so on—you can squeeze out only tortured answers from libertarian principles, and yet some answers must be agreed upon, and it matters a great deal what they will be.)
However, even more importantly, the social norms on these topics in all human societies are especially heavy on what Jonathan Haidt identifies as the moral foundation of “sacredness.” Again excepting the small fringe of libertarians, on these topics, none of the contemporary ideological groups takes seriously arguments based on libertarian principles, or even on cost-benefit analysis—except insofar as such arguments may provide useful rhetorical ammunition for promoting their sacredness-based norms. (And when such arguments give answers contrary to people’s sacredness intuitions, they tend to perceive them as shockingly vile or insane.)
I agree that this is possible in principle, but from what I observe in practice, libertarian arguments have extremely low weight in such trade-offs, except for the tiny minority of principled libertarians, who form a small and reasonably well-delineated cluster. When it comes to issues that are otherwise neutral and uncontroversial, people will normally default to the libertarian position. However, as soon as an issue has any bearing on ideology, tradition, religion, ethnic identity, political power, economic interests, status hierarchy, etc., etc., people normally assign near-zero weight to libertarian arguments, except insofar as they provide useful material for unprincipled rhetorical ploys.
This seems exaggerated to me (although I agree that the tendencies you mention exist and are significant). Consider, for example, the famous incident in which the American Civil Liberties Union defended a Nazi group’s right to demonstrate. The ACLU was and is a non-fringe organization, and likewise, the position that “Nazism is despicable, but freedom of speech and assembly is more important than silencing Nazis” is reasonably mainstream in the United States. Similarly, the idea that “Drug use is bad, but marijuana should be legal” seems not-uncontroversial but also non-fringey.
Fair enough—I agree that’s a valid counterexample to my thesis. (I do think, however, that you overestimate the amount of principled support for free speech in the contemporary U.S. For many of its defenders, it’s a matter of strategic expediency, since they are not confident that, if speech-restricting precedents were established, their side would win the subsequent political battles over whose favored speech restrictions would get instituted. In particular, many prominent ACLU-affiliated people don’t seem to have any problem with the existing speech restrictions in places where their co-ideologues are firmly entrenched in power, even though they wouldn’t want to establish a legal basis for such restrictions in the U.S., at least for now. But I do agree that this is one issue where there is some serious weight given to libertarian principles in the mainstream discourse.)
(I should maybe also add that I don’t live in the U.S., which is a pretty extravagant outlier when it comes to the attitudes and legal norms regarding free speech, so the example didn’t occur to me readily.)
That said, I still think my comments are valid when it comes to the issues of sexuality, marriage, etc. Here I really see an ideological clash fundamentally motivated by incompatible sacredness norms, with all other considerations, including libertarian principles, entering the debate only insofar as they provide useful rhetorical ammunition.
This seems exaggerated to me (although I agree that the tendencies you mention exist and are significant). Consider, for example, the famous incident in which the American Civil Liberties Union defended a Nazi group’s right to demonstrate. The ACLU was and is a non-fringe organization, and likewise, the position that “Nazism is despicable, but freedom of speech and assembly is more important than silencing Nazis” is reasonably mainstream in the United States.
There’s not much danger of the Nazis convincing non-negligible numbers of people, so this is a cheap way to signal one’s support for freedom of speech. Call me when the ACLU is interested in protecting the right of pro-life groups to demonstrate outside abortion clinics.
Similarly, the idea that “Drug use is bad, but marijuana should be legal” seems not-uncontroversial but also non-fringey.
My understanding is that most of these people actually hold the position that “use of certain drugs is bad, but marijuana isn’t one of those drugs”.
While I agree that strict adherence to libertarian principles is rare, it does not therefore follow that most appeals to libertarian principles are merely opportunistic argumentative ploys. Libertarianism is a continuum, not a boolean; it seems to me that people can simultaneously have both an ideological attachment to some particular vision of what they want society to look like, and also an ideological attachment to libertarianism, and that these conflicting desires get traded off against each other in some proportion. The end result is that people end up saying, “People should be free to do whatever they like, except x_1, x_2, … x_n, which are obviously harmful.” I agree with you that the x_i are not chosen on any sort of neutral, principled basis, but that only means that libertarian arguments have limited force, not no force. There are some things I disapprove of so strongly that I want them to be illegal, but that doesn’t mean I want everything I disapprove of to be illegal.
I agree that this is possible in principle, but from what I observe in practice, libertarian arguments have extremely low weight in such trade-offs, except for the tiny minority of principled libertarians, who form a small and reasonably well-delineated cluster. When it comes to issues that are otherwise neutral and uncontroversial, people will normally default to the libertarian position. However, as soon as an issue has any bearing on ideology, tradition, religion, ethnic identity, political power, economic interests, status hierarchy, etc., etc., people normally assign near-zero weight to libertarian arguments, except insofar as they provide useful material for unprincipled rhetorical ploys.
This is especially true for the whole enormous cluster of controversial topics that involve sex, reproduction, marriage, and family. This is in part because these topics involve many questions of grave importance on which libertarian theory completely breaks down and can’t provide any sensible answers. (For example, what should be the mutual rights and obligations between parents and children? What should be the legal age of consent? What constitutes valid adoption? What’s the legal boundary between abortion/infanticide and murder? And so on—you can squeeze out only tortured answers from libertarian principles, and yet some answers must be agreed upon, and it matters a great deal what they will be.)
However, even more importantly, the social norms on these topics in all human societies are especially heavy on what Jonathan Haidt identifies as the moral foundation of “sacredness.” Again excepting the small fringe of libertarians, on these topics, none of the contemporary ideological groups takes seriously arguments based on libertarian principles, or even on cost-benefit analysis—except insofar as such arguments may provide useful rhetorical ammunition for promoting their sacredness-based norms. (And when such arguments give answers contrary to people’s sacredness intuitions, they tend to perceive them as shockingly vile or insane.)
This seems exaggerated to me (although I agree that the tendencies you mention exist and are significant). Consider, for example, the famous incident in which the American Civil Liberties Union defended a Nazi group’s right to demonstrate. The ACLU was and is a non-fringe organization, and likewise, the position that “Nazism is despicable, but freedom of speech and assembly is more important than silencing Nazis” is reasonably mainstream in the United States. Similarly, the idea that “Drug use is bad, but marijuana should be legal” seems not-uncontroversial but also non-fringey.
Fair enough—I agree that’s a valid counterexample to my thesis. (I do think, however, that you overestimate the amount of principled support for free speech in the contemporary U.S. For many of its defenders, it’s a matter of strategic expediency, since they are not confident that, if speech-restricting precedents were established, their side would win the subsequent political battles over whose favored speech restrictions would get instituted. In particular, many prominent ACLU-affiliated people don’t seem to have any problem with the existing speech restrictions in places where their co-ideologues are firmly entrenched in power, even though they wouldn’t want to establish a legal basis for such restrictions in the U.S., at least for now. But I do agree that this is one issue where there is some serious weight given to libertarian principles in the mainstream discourse.)
(I should maybe also add that I don’t live in the U.S., which is a pretty extravagant outlier when it comes to the attitudes and legal norms regarding free speech, so the example didn’t occur to me readily.)
That said, I still think my comments are valid when it comes to the issues of sexuality, marriage, etc. Here I really see an ideological clash fundamentally motivated by incompatible sacredness norms, with all other considerations, including libertarian principles, entering the debate only insofar as they provide useful rhetorical ammunition.
There’s not much danger of the Nazis convincing non-negligible numbers of people, so this is a cheap way to signal one’s support for freedom of speech. Call me when the ACLU is interested in protecting the right of pro-life groups to demonstrate outside abortion clinics.
My understanding is that most of these people actually hold the position that “use of certain drugs is bad, but marijuana isn’t one of those drugs”.