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From: radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Pollution: no libertarian solution!
Message-ID: <2@calgary.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 19:05:30 EST
Article-I.D.: calgary.2
Posted: Mon Dec 16 19:05:30 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Dec-85 07:09:32 EST
References: <841@mmintl.UUCP> <353@umich.UUCP> <618@calgary.UUCP> <365@umich.UUCP>
Organization: University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Lines: 37

> In article <618@calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
> >This isn't particularly surprising. All political philosophies have
> >similar "weak points", arising because they are social approximations
> >to more base moral principles. I don't think it is a valid argument against
> >libertarianism to point this out.
> 
> It depends.  If you regard your libertarianism as logically derived from
> certain moral "axioms" (whether or not you regard the "axioms" as provable),
> then it IS a valid argument.  If you fudge your logical derivation at any
> point in such a system, you ruin the whole system.
> 
> If you regard your libertarianism as merely an attempt to systematize some 
> conflicting intuitions, then you shouldn't be worried by the pollution
> argument.  However, first, I wonder how anyone could admit that this is the
> only foundation of his ethical views, and still be a libertarian -- after
> all, libertarians seem to be pretty dogmatic about exceptionless rules....

Some libertarians may be dogmatic about rules, but I don't feel any such
obligation.

What I meant is that the *political ideology* of libertarianism is justified
(for me) on the basis of moral principles, but that this justification 
is not absolute. There are exceptions in certain extreme cases (extreme
meaning "not the typical case considered in the justification") and in
things like "lifeboat situations".

For an analogy, consider the derivation of classical electrodynamics from
quantum electrodynamics. The classical laws can be derived as statistical
approximations, but not absolutely.

In practice, this means that I can apply the usual "rules" of libertarianism
to a large number of real cases but don't have to try to defend *every*
application of them to peculiar circumstances. I don't think this is
cheating; everyone does it. It's just only noticable in people with a
coherent ideology.

    Radford Neal