Author Archives: Mark Friedman

Is there anything intrinsically valuable about an equal, or at least more equal, distribution of wealth or other resources among members of a given community? In other words, are there any circumstances where it would be just to reduce the holdings of some persons simply to reduce the disparity between what they have and what others do? What has come to be known as the “leveling down” argument answers these questions in the negative. Continue Reading »

Dr. Thomas Szasz, who passed away in 2012, was (and still is) widely admired in  libertarian circles. He was given a platform in libertarian journals and periodicals, and was the subject of numerous accolades upon his passing. He merits a full 11-page discussion (pp. 499-509) in Brian Doherty’s chronicle of the libertarian movement, Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs, 2007).  Although it easy to fathom the reasons for this fame and respect, it is misplaced. Even from a purely rights-based perspective, Dr. Szasz is no hero. Continue Reading »

I am pleased to say that the manuscript for my new book, Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World: The Politics of Natural Rights, has been submitted to my publisher, Bloomsbury Academic, with an expected release date of late January, 2015. Bloomsbury has been kind enough to prepare a little preview here: http://www.ecampus.com/libertarian-philosophy-real-world-politics/bk/9781472573407.  This now frees me up to be a little more active here on the blogging front.

I have taken a vacation from blogging in order to complete the manuscript of my second libertarian philosophy book, to be published by Bloomsbury Academic late this year. It is a work of applied philosophy that starts with Nozick’s moral framework, then critiques the welfare/regulatory state on that basis. However, I hope the following may be of some interest. Continue Reading »

The title of one of Ayn Rand’s collections of political and philosophical essays, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, expresses her frustration at the public’s shocking ignorance of the ethical foundations of capitalism. Since its publication in 1967, I daresay that the situation has only gotten worse, as demonstrated by the politics surrounding our healthcare system.

I am not a consequentialist, so my criticism of our system–as modified by the ACA–is not that it is enormously wasteful, inefficient and riddled with fraud, although it certainly is. Rather, I condemn it because it violates the rights of virtually all participants on a massive scale, including laws against the “unauthorized practice of medicine;” nonconsensual participation in Medicare;   tax discrimination against individual insurance plans; insurance mandates, and restrictions on the interstate sale of policies; the FDA’s power to deny competent adults access to medicines they wish to purchase; and so on. Nonetheless, it is typically the case that governmental interference with freedom of contract produces perverse incentives, and medical care is no exception. Continue Reading »

In my last post I argued that anti-discrimination laws could not, absent extraordinary circumstances, be countenanced under natural rights principles. A similar argument applies to the affirmative action programs instituted by all of our leading public colleges and universities.  In both cases, social policy is pursued by impermissible means, violating basic moral principles.

Anti-discrimination laws contravene our right to associate (or not) with whom we please, while affirmative action offends every person’s right to be treated justly  under the rule of law. If a state is going to undertake the production of certain goods, say roads and highways, it must–if it respects the rule of law–do so in a way that does not consciously favor one group of citizens over another.  It can’t build safe, well-engineered roads in communities where one ethnic group predominates, and shoddy, unsafe roads in others. By the same token, public colleges and universities must apply the same criteria for admission to all citizens.[1]  Continue Reading »

One of the undesirable side-effects of the drive toward marriage equality under law (which I support) is that it has given new momentum to the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.  All states have them, and they prohibit businesses, charitable groups and civic organizations from discriminating on the basis of certain specified characteristics; twenty-one states include sexual orientation in the list.  As argued below, all of these laws are inconsistent with basic notions of individual liberty.  

The latest high-profile case involves a New Mexico commercial photographer who refused to memorialize the commitment ceremony of a same sex couple (marriage being currently unavailable to them in this state), because such relationships clashed with her sincerely held religious convictions. The NM Supreme Court held that the law applied to her, and that she may therefore be coerced into compliance by fines. See http://verdict.justia.com/2013/09/04/new-mexico-supreme-court-anti-discrimination-law-to-wedding-photographere Thus, dissenters from the “official” moral stance taken by New Mexico may be put to a choice between adhering to their beliefs and earning a livelihood. Continue Reading »

In 2005, Larry Summers, the illustrious economist and former president of Harvard University got himself into considerable hot water when he articulated the following hypothesis regarding why relatively few women occupy senior-level science and engineering positions:

So my best guess, to provoke you…[is] that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them. [1]

Were Summers an academic philosopher, he might have asked himself the following question before speaking: “If it turns out to be an unalterable fact that as a society we can have either a meritocracy or the relatively even representation of men and women in high-level STEM professions, but not both, this will cause many people, especially feminists and egalitarians, great anguish; so wouldn’t it be better to simply keep my mouth shut on this subject?” In other words, if the dissemination of a particular truth will produce more harm than good under a utilitarian calculation, why should we not suppress it? (assuming of course that this were somehow within our power)    Continue Reading »

The now-infamous Dr. Gosnell routinely performed abortions by inducing labor,  delivering live babies, and then severing their spinal cords. If the babies were more than 24 weeks old, this “procedure” constitutes first degree murder under Pennsylvania law.  His jury found him guilty of three counts of this crime, but the number of murders he committed was certainly much higher. See the Report issued by the investigating grand jury in this case, pp. 5-6 (readily available online).

Gosnell’s unsuccessful legal defense was that he had already killed these fetuses in utero by means of  injections of the drug Digoxin. Because the fetuses were past the 24-week cutoff, this would still have been a felony, but not murder, under the laws of Pennsylvania. The jury rejected this claim, which is why Gosnell will spend the rest of his life in prison. Continue Reading »

This is the first in a two-part series. Part I will analyze whether there exists a doctrinaire rights-based position on the ethics of abortion, i.e. a persuasive view that can be derived from our first principles. Part II will discuss what the recent murder convictions of Kermit Gosnell, the now infamous Philadelphia late-term abortionist, tells us about the current state of our society, and why libertarians should care about this.

It is certainly the case that most committed libertarians tend to hold strong (if not extreme) pro-choice views, as reflected in section 1.4 of the Libertarian Party’s 2012 platform, which provides that:  “…we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.” On its face, this would permit legal abortions up to the actual moment of birth. Continue Reading »