Libertarianism: what is it?

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As this has come up in multiple threads, I figure why keep derailing them and instead give the topic a thread of its own.

I had a recent conversation about this on here, and this question has popped up again in another thread. My understanding--thanks in part to some really intelligent GWJ'ers who made clear the difference between it and the more familiar (to me) philosophy of Objectivism--is that the fundamental truth of Libertarianism is the Principle of Non-Aggression: you do not use force except in self-defense of life/liberty/property. The state uses force to accomplish its tasks--if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. That means the state should be limited to defending life/liberty/property.

The issue is that people want to talk about flavors of Libertarianism or having a partially Libertarian political outlook. I don't see this as possible. Libertarianism as I understand it differs from a lot of other political ideologies in that it has a fundamental truth both easily expressed and analyzed at its center: that Principle of Non-Aggression. Now of course there will be disagreements as to how to best set up a government that embodies that truth that the only valid exercise of force--state force or private force--is self-defense, but that's a pretty limited range of options compared to a lot of other political ideologies.

A lot of 'libertarianism' comes across to me as Lunchroom Libertarianism: picking and choosing things from Libertarianism that you like, and leaving what you don't. I don't think you can do that and still call it Libertarianism or say a position is Libertarian. Why? Well, like I said: as I understand it, everything in Libertarianism flows from that Principle of Non-Aggression. Libertarianism can't be a mosaic or a mixture of different beliefs: what makes something Libertarian is adherence to that central Principle. Once you start mixing in other things that can trump that principle, that's just an individualistic form of Liberalism or Conservativism in most cases. What's more, in most cases there's probably a better explanation for that position on the political spectrum than Libertarian thought.

I think sometimes because Libertarianism is all about liberty, we fall into the trap of thinking the politics of liberty exclusively descends from Libertarianism. It isn't, anymore than the politics of economic equality exclusively descends from Marxism. There are plenty of other political ideologies with a claim on liberty. What seems to happen is people want that easy and powerful explanation that Libertarianism has when it boldly announces "force only for self-defense from force" but they don't want all the problems that go along with that, so they patch it up or dilute it.

Thing is, when you've got a political ideology as pure as Libertarianism where the fundamentals are so absolute and simple, I don't see how you can really modify it without breaking it. When I say Libertarianism is a more limited political ideology than most others, that's not me putting it down. That's me respecting it as a political ideology with a solid belief at its core.

Honestly, there are Libertarians who would agree with you and Libertarians who wouldn't agree with you. Pure ideology is always dangerous, IMO. Libertarianism isn't, by its nature, pure. It's simpler and so it seems like it will always be pure, but in the real world pure ideology is always dangerous and rarely practiced.

DSGamer wrote:

Honestly, there are Libertarians who would agree with you and Libertarians who wouldn't agree with you.

Well how do we know they're Libertarians? Is it just a matter of calling one's self a Libertarian? Am I a Libertarian then? Is anyone who isn't a Fascist or a Communist a Libertarian?

Pure ideology is always dangerous, IMO. Libertarianism isn't, by its nature, pure. It's simpler and so it seems like it will always be pure, but in the real world pure ideology is always dangerous and rarely practiced.

Well okay, but just because it would be dangerous and rarely practiced doesn't mean Libertarianism isn't pure.

You're confusing a "Principle of Non-Aggression" with a belief in a freedom from coercion.

Libertarianism is one half of an axis with Authoritarianism at the other end. As such it's more an adjective than a noun and it's perfectly possible to have many different flavours of, or approaches to, libertarianism. By declaring it has a simple truth at its core you're falling into the same "lunchroom libertarian" trap you mentioned above.

Murray Rothbard is pretty much the intellectual progenitor of economic libertarianism and he was the one who coined the term "anarcho capitalism". When folks talk about ending the Fed and abolishing government currency, they inevitably end up quoting Uncle Murray as their intellectual source.

In describing Libertarianism, he wrote: "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism."

So don't take it from me. Take it from the source.

Libertarian = Anarchist.

Maq wrote:

Libertarianism is one half of an axis with Authoritarianism at the other end. As such it's more an adjective than a noun and it's perfectly possible to have many different flavours of, or approaches to, libertarianism. By declaring it has a simple truth at its core you're falling into the same "lunchroom libertarian" trap you mentioned above.

Well, the typical "maximal" form of authoritarianism that we consider is a state which controls every action its citizens take. (i.e. big brother, Orwellian nightmare, etc.)

On the other side, one would presume the "maximal" form of libertarianism is a state which controls no action its citizens take. How is this condition different from the maximal form of anarchism?

Do libertarianism and anarchism come to the same limit in their maximal forms, but diverge as they enter the realm of more nuanced policy? If so, around where is the appropriate point at which to stop in order to avoid talking about anarchism instead of libertarianism? And, significantly, why do so many proponents of libertarian ideas seem to suggest that if you don't go all the way it's not worth going anywhere at all?

And finally, if it is inappropriate to speak of libertarian ideas taken to their full extent, why is it appropriate to contrast them with "pure" authoritarianism? Would systems that approach authoritarianism at their limit not also have the same property that they differ from authoritarianism when expressed in a lesser degree?

In short: Is there really an axis here at all?

Hypatian wrote:
Maq wrote:

Libertarianism is one half of an axis with Authoritarianism at the other end. As such it's more an adjective than a noun and it's perfectly possible to have many different flavours of, or approaches to, libertarianism. By declaring it has a simple truth at its core you're falling into the same "lunchroom libertarian" trap you mentioned above.

Well, the typical "maximal" form of authoritarianism that we consider is a state which controls every action its citizens take. (i.e. big brother, Orwellian nightmare, etc.)

On the other side, one would presume the "maximal" form of libertarianism is a state which controls no action its citizens take. How is this condition different from the maximal form of anarchism?

It's not. Anarchism is a subset of Libertarianism. Libertarianism is the road not the destination, like Liberalism, and trying to define it as a specific discrete entity gets you in a mess.

There's the thing though. Just about every Libertarian I know eventually gets around to quoting Murray Rothbard as the prophet coming down from the mountain. They all look to the Austrian school as the one true economics. And despite their protestations at the whole anarcho-capitalist label, they never seem to separate themselves from a pretty screwed up intellectual anchor who believes that parents should be allowed to sell their kids.

Liberalism is a lot more ill-defined than either libertarianism or anarchism--consider how many different ideals have been described as "liberal" over the years, and how many different ideals are described as "liberal" even today. (My own personal definition would be "willing to make large changes in policy" vs conservative "preferring to make only small changes in policy". Notice that this matches the standard American definitions not at all. And also note that my definitions do not denote any specific policy goals, they only talk about how one should approach one's policy goals. And contrast "liberal/conservative" with "progressive/conservative", where the division is instead between "belief that a new social order can be established which is preferable to the old social order" and "belief that an old well-established social order is preferable to a new untested social order".)

Perhaps it would be better to refer to "socialism" (i.e. "the belief that the state should actively promote social good") here? Or did you have a different meaning in mind?

Also, I would be interested to know what exactly you mean by "anarchism is a subset of libertarianism". There's so little context to that statement that I can't make heads or tails of it.

Finally, could you elaborate on what the policy goals of the libertarian outlook are? For example, would "the belief that the state should interfere as little as possible with the activities of its citizens" be fair? If so, how do popular "libertarian" ideas express this ideal? And again, how does this differ from anarchism (taken as a policy goal of minimizing the influence of the state as much as possible, rather than the end goal of non-existence of the state--both contrasted with authoritarianism as the policy goal of allowing the influence of the state to grow as large as necessary to promote its policies).

As it appears that Libertarianism is a lot more loaded a term in the States than it was to my colonial Pol Sci studies, I won't keep throwing dry definitions at what is clearly a question of defining political identity. Just to explain where I'm coming from:

Hypatian wrote:

Also, I would be interested to know what exactly you mean by "anarchism is a subset of libertarianism". There's so little context to that statement that I can't make heads or tails of it.

What I mean is similar to how you define Liberal and Conservative. An Anarchist is inclusively a Libertarian in the same way a Minarchist is a type of Libertarian or a Marxist is a type of Socialist.

Hypatian wrote:

Finally, could you elaborate on what the policy goals of the libertarian outlook are? For example, would "the belief that the state should interfere as little as possible with the activities of its citizens" be fair? If so, how do popular "libertarian" ideas express this ideal? And again, how does this differ from anarchism (taken as a policy goal of minimizing the influence of the state as much as possible, rather than the end goal of non-existence of the state--both contrasted with authoritarianism as the policy goal of maximizing the influence of the state).

I'd define the overall social framework of libertarian belief as "the belief that members of a society be free from co-ercion", but your definition works to all intents and purposes. The methods by which you believe that goal should be achieved further subdivides your ideology. I disagree that Anarchism is for the minimization of state influence: Anarchism is the belief in the abolition of state influence. Minarchism is the belief in minimal state influence. Both are libertarian ideals in as much as they both espouse the reduction of state influence from what is presumably its current level.

I suspect that, in the US at least, Libertarianism struggles to define itself as a cogent philosophy due to the fact it tends to rope in aspects of Anarchism and Economic Liberalism that are often at odds with each other. This is similar to the way that Socialism finds itself spread across a spectrum from Trotskyism to, ironically, Anarchism. I find the Political Compass an interesting shorthand for this kind of thing.

However, given that this struggle to define an ideal is actually quite interesting in and of itself I'll leave you to it and stop trying to interject chinstrokeyness. Or to put it another way I'm not so interested in proving myself right that I want to waste that much time at work arguing about it

Maq wrote:

I'd define the overall social framework of libertarian belief as "the belief that members of a society be free from co-ercion", but your definition works to all intents and purposes. The methods by which you believe that goal should be achieved further subdivides your ideology. I disagree that Anarchism is for the minimization of state influence: Anarchism is the belief in the abolition of state influence. Minarchism is the belief in minimal state influence. Both are libertarian ideals in as much as they both espouse the reduction of state influence from what is presumably its current level.

Okay So a problem I see here is that "the belief that member of a society [should] be free from coercion" is more comparable to "the state should be abolished" than to "the state should be minimized". When you have an absolute goal ("there should be no state", or "members of a society should be free from coercion"), it admits no compromise. There is no acceptable level of stateness that is acceptable to the anarchist in order to achieve other goods. There is no acceptable level of coercion that is acceptable to the libertarian (by your formulation of the term) in order to achieve other goods. If you state things in this way, there is no compromise.

If, instead, you state things as the minarchist "the state should be minimized", you now have a flexible constraint. The state's size is to be minimized with respect to the purpose of the state, therefore you can argue about whether a given policy, although it increases the size of the state, is worth the size of the increase. And you can work to minimize the size of the increase while maintaining the majority of the policy goal.

--

Now, on to a more important question: What exactly the f*ck is "coercion"?

See, I would argue that on the face of it, the term "libertarianism" would seem to imply that it's about maintaining liberties--and that idea opens things up to a world of questions about how the state can work to maintain liberties rather than curtail them, and questions about where individual liberties conflict, and whether things like corporations count as things that have liberties to be maintained.

But I've only ever heard the term "coercion" used by Libertarians as a code-word for "taxation by 'the government'", or sometimes "any action by 'the government' except the protection of property rights", or even "any action by 'the government' at all". So I'm unclear what it means to minimize it, much less to eschew it completely.

[redacted] I'll take this to PM. It's silly to move it from OT in one place to OT in another. Sorry.

I've always perceived Libertarianism as based on the principle that a person's self-interest always comes before anything else. The principle of non-aggression is more accurately given as "you leave me alone, and I leave you alone - mess with me, and I'll mess with you back". Community in this system is based not on the idea that people need to care for each other, but on the idea that without others, one's self-interest will not be completely met. It's a necessary evil to be minimized - at best an inconvenience - and any policy that is intended to be "for the good of all" is automatically suspect, because it might put the interests of others ahead of one's own self-interest.

Self-interest as the primary motivator can explain every facet of Libertarianism, up to and including non-violence. Note that this is not *selfishness*, necessarily. A Libertarian could *choose* to help others freely. But he can't support any measure that would *require* that someone else contribute to anything other than their own self-interest.

I'm willing to bet that this could be traced to a 19th century understanding of Darwinism, the same misconceptions that led to Social Darwinism. We know now that altruism is selected for in human socieities (and others), but for decades it was thought that evolution made us all hyper-competitive self-interested individualists at core, and Libertarianism seems to have adopted that as an essential underpinning.

Libertarian coercion is anything that would force me to do something, rather than giving me the choice to do it. If I can safely ignore it, and no one can force me to do it, it's not coercion; if it's got the threat of force behind it and I can't ignore it, it is coercion.

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.

DSGamer wrote:

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.

There are plenty of liberals and conservatives that want that. So what makes libertarianism special?

Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.

There are plenty of liberals and conservatives that want that. So what makes libertarianism special?

These sets are not disjoint. (Aka its not special, its another collection of ideas born of the political expresion of the enlightenment, liberalism(broad scope))

DSGamer wrote:

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.

Robear made a specific and detailed effort to point out that is explicitly not what he was doing, by explaining the difference between selfishness and self interest. Why would you ignore what was his central point?

I dont particularly think he's wrong, either; my understanding of our species is such that i dont think we as individuals have the ability to work against our own self interests as we perceive them, from the soup kitchen worker to the drug addict to the martyr. Libertarianism just embraces that, with all the ugly parts of it included.

edit: added bold around the part that experience tells me people will ignore.

CheezePavilion wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Honestly, there are Libertarians who would agree with you and Libertarians who wouldn't agree with you.

Well how do we know they're Libertarians? Is it just a matter of calling one's self a Libertarian? Am I a Libertarian then? Is anyone who isn't a Fascist or a Communist a Libertarian?

Pure ideology is always dangerous, IMO. Libertarianism isn't, by its nature, pure. It's simpler and so it seems like it will always be pure, but in the real world pure ideology is always dangerous and rarely practiced.

Well okay, but just because it would be dangerous and rarely practiced doesn't mean Libertarianism isn't pure.

I'm kind of confused by this. You can envision such a thing as "pure libertarianism" just as you could envision "pure authoritarianism," but in the real world there are very, very few people who are perfectly aligned with all tenets you might ascribe to these things.

There is no Libertarian Pope who will excommunicate you if you happen to think state funding of roads is kinda cool.

I kind of take it for granted that people now understand the view of politics as a matrix of positions on two axes: economic and social. If you aren't familiar with it, see here. They have a test you can take which should be enlightening.

The most obvious way to define a "Libertarian" would be based on membership in the Libertarian Party, but with a realization that individuals of said party will agree and disagree with elements the platform to the same varying degrees that Republicans or Democrats would their own parties. You may read the full platform online.

Seth wrote:

i dont think we as individuals have the ability to work against our own self interests as we perceive them,

That's a rather depressing outlook. You really don't think people have the capability to do something to help someone without expecting anything in return (yes, even without expecting that it will indirectly benefit them in any way, including "making the world a better place")? And on the other side: you really don't think people have the capability to be self destructive even when they know what they're doing is self destructive (i.e. "I know this is absolutely bad for me, and has no upsides at all, but I'm going to do it anyway")?

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.
Self-interest as the primary motivator can explain every facet of Libertarianism, up to and including non-violence. Note that this is not *selfishness*, necessarily.
boogle wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

You just went and loaded up Libertarianism with selfishness and other presumptions. There are Libertarians who aren't selfish, you know. Who really just want the government to allow them to smoke pot, take off their seat belt, stop spying on them, etc.

There are plenty of liberals and conservatives that want that. So what makes libertarianism special?

These sets are not disjoint. (Aka its not special, its another collection of ideas born of the political expresion of the enlightenment, liberalism(broad scope))

Yeah, this is what I'm getting at: what elements are exclusively found in the Libertarianism 'set'? And how can the Libertarianism 'set' have other elements when the Principle of Non-Aggression is in there? Isn't that the kind of Principle that crowds out all other elements? Like if a Libertarian goes to make a decision on government action, wouldn't the decision go something like:

Anyone being coerced with physical force?

yes: stop them and protect the target's right of self-defense;

no: government is powerless here.

gore wrote:

I'm kind of confused by this. You can envision such a thing as "pure libertarianism" just as you could envision "pure authoritarianism," but in the real world there are very, very few people who are perfectly aligned with all tenets you might ascribe to these things.

There is no Libertarian Pope who will excommunicate you if you happen to think state funding of roads is kinda cool.

But when you talk to certain people who espouse Libertarianism (for example: Aetius), they certainly seem to want to do that. Which is rather confusing. Many Libertarians seem to take the stance that "if it is supported by taxes, it is support by coercion, if it is supported by coercion, it is evil and must be abolished, unconditionally."

gore wrote:

I kind of take it for granted that people now understand the view of politics as a matrix of positions on two axes: economic and social. If you aren't familiar with it, see here. They have a test you can take which should be enlightening.

That's a very simplistic breakdown, honestly. I don't think "people now understand" etc. is correct. I think "this is a better way to break down questions of policy" is correct—but there are significantly more dimensions than that. For example, I would say that I am a conservative (in the sense of taking small steps and checking your work) progressive (in the sense that I believe we should change and adapt to embrace the future, not the past) socialist (in the sense that I support government policies that provide for the social good) pro-science (in that I believe that one of the social goods that the government absolutely must support is scientific progress) (and I have numerous other specific policy beliefs about education, war, etc.) market-moderate (in that I believe in allowing the market to do things the market is good at, but constrained by regulation to prevent the evils that the market tends to promote) civil libertarian (in the sense that I believe *individual* liberties must be protected) minarchist (in the sense that I believe in the smallest government possible—so long as it does all of the above things that I believe a government must do).

Most of those things are positions on different dimensions of political philosophy, rather than positions on specific policies (I only included one of those, although as I alluded, that's another entire set of dimensions).

Hypatian wrote:
Seth wrote:

i dont think we as individuals have the ability to work against our own self interests as we perceive them,

That's a rather depressing outlook. You really don't think people have the capability to do something to help someone without expecting anything in return (yes, even without expecting that it will indirectly benefit them in any way, including "making the world a better place")?

and the Objectivism arrives! : D

I don't consider this a depressing outlook. Even if all a person expects in return is the satisfaction that comes from helping someone--direct emotional benefit--that's technically self-interest. Not all benefit has to be material.

And on the other side: you really don't think people have the capability to be self destructive even when they know what they're doing is self destructive (i.e. "I know this is absolutely bad for me, and has no upsides at all, but I'm going to do it anyway")?

I think at this point we get into the issue of willpower.

Hypatian wrote:
Seth wrote:

i dont think we as individuals have the ability to work against our own self interests as we perceive them,

That's a rather depressing outlook. You really don't think people have the capability to do something to help someone without expecting anything in return (yes, even without expecting that it will indirectly benefit them in any way, including "making the world a better place")? And on the other side: you really don't think people have the capability to be self destructive even when they know what they're doing is self destructive (i.e. "I know this is absolutely bad for me, and has no upsides at all, but I'm going to do it anyway")?

as Robear pointed out, altruism is a part of our species. Doing good deeds releases chemicals in our brain that make us feel good. I don't see altruism and self interest as mutually exclusive. A man sacrificing his life for his child is acting in a self interested manner, for example, because he considers his child's life more important than his own.

On your flip side, sometimes being self destructive is the perceived self interest of the individual. Pain avoidance is not everyone's goal.

edit: tannhausered!

gore wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Honestly, there are Libertarians who would agree with you and Libertarians who wouldn't agree with you.

Well how do we know they're Libertarians? Is it just a matter of calling one's self a Libertarian? Am I a Libertarian then? Is anyone who isn't a Fascist or a Communist a Libertarian?

Pure ideology is always dangerous, IMO. Libertarianism isn't, by its nature, pure. It's simpler and so it seems like it will always be pure, but in the real world pure ideology is always dangerous and rarely practiced.

Well okay, but just because it would be dangerous and rarely practiced doesn't mean Libertarianism isn't pure.

I'm kind of confused by this. You can envision such a thing as "pure libertarianism" just as you could envision "pure authoritarianism," but in the real world there are very, very few people who are perfectly aligned with all tenets you might ascribe to these things.

There is no Libertarian Pope who will excommunicate you if you happen to think state funding of roads is kinda cool.

You know, that's *exactly* what I had in mind (Lunchroom Libertarian/Cafeteria Catholic). I know there is no Libertarian Pope, but the Principle of Non-Aggression is so easily understood and so fundamental, it's as if there were.

If you happen to think state funding of roads is kinda cool, how do you make that argument without violating the Principle of Non-Aggression?

I kind of take it for granted that people now understand the view of politics as a matrix of positions on two axes: economic and social. If you aren't familiar with it, see here. They have a test you can take which should be enlightening.

The most obvious way to define a "Libertarian" would be based on membership in the Libertarian Party, but with a realization that individuals of said party will agree and disagree with elements the platform to the same varying degrees that Republicans or Democrats would their own parties. You may read the full platform online.

OH THAT GOD DAMN CHART AGAIN! ; D

Um. Why is "willpower" an "issue"? I'm just saying in the one case that we certainly can work against our own self interests as we perceive them, and in the other case that saying that "that's technically self-interest" about charity is dismissive and missing the entire point of charity.

Let's see if I can illustrate. I don't have a good direct example ready about the difference between charity and "self interest in feeling good about doing charity", but perhaps this will demonstrate the overall idea.

I had a friend in college who bought very strongly into objectivism, and libertarianism, and... ceremonial magick. Yeah, she was a little weird. She went on a raw food diet (including raw meat) for a while. Anyway, one day we were talking about willpower (hah! a connection) and self-control, and passion and romance. I was trying very hard to get her to understand my point of view as a romantic, that there are experiences you cannot achieve through force of will. That, in fact, there are certain experiences where if you are in control negate the experience completely. I didn't really get my idea through to her, but the thought experiment (or perhaps the koan) was this:

Imagine that you are in a rushing river, grasping some sort of anchor. Downstream is a rushing waterfall. In the first case, imagine that someone is fully capable of pulling themself to shore should they choose, or letting go and be carried away should they choose. They choose to let go and be carried downstream over the waterfall.

In the second case, imagine that someone is grasping the anchor and [em]against their will you is carried away by the current and swept over the waterfall[/em].

Are the experiences of the two people the same? Can the person of will ever choose to have the same experience as the person who was swept away? Or is it essential to the experience of the person who was carried away that they [em]had no choice[/em]? Can you ever truly [em]choose[/em] to experience [em]having no choice[/em]?

That, to me, is the division between will and passion. And that's why I'm a romantic.

--

Now, I'd like to suggest that the division between "charity because somewhere deep down you expect a reward, even if it's simply the reward of feeling good about doing good" and "charity with no expectation of any reward whatsoever" is very much equivalent to the difference between "being carried away because you chose to be carried away" and "being carried away against your will".

It's possible to argue that there's no difference (as my friend did with my example: she honestly didn't see the difference between choice and non-choice, as long as both resulted in going over the waterfall)—but to my eye there's a very clear division... and suggesting that the two experiences are equivalent (that doing good because you want to feel good about yourself is the same as doing good for the sake of itself) to me belittles the second experience. And worse, believing that the second experience doesn't really exist (that nobody can do good for itself, but only for the expectation of a reward—or that nobody can ever be swept away, that everybody chooses what they experience) denies a very vital and wonderful part of the human condition.

And yes, I think that makes the world a grayer place. A place in which self-interest and will rule, and goodness and romance fade.

--

To put it differently: I can't imagine wanting to live in a world where that was the case. I do not want to live by a philosophy that insists that that is the case. I want to do good things for the sake of doing good, I want to be swept off my feet by my experiences. I want art to be for the art, not just for a purpose. I want science to be done for the sheer wonder of knowing the world, not just to give us more power over the world.

I cannot fathom philosophies that insist that people with my outlook are delusional. And I have a hard time stomaching it when adherents of such philosophies try to cram everything into that model—even though from where I stand, there are things which clearly lie outside it.

i dont think willpower and free will are interchangeable, as you seem to be saying. I dont think self interest is immune to chance or catastrophe. And I worry that bringing these things up in a thread about libertarianism makes the topic too unweildy. But i worry about a lot of stuff.

edit:

in the other case that saying that "that's technically self-interest" about charity is dismissive and missing the entire point of charity.

no. I am 100% convinced that if charity did not evoke endorphins (or some other benefit, be it emotional or not), no one would do it, ever. If volunteering made you hate everything, why would anyone save the nihilist do it?

I find it funny that so many people like to tell self-professed Libertarians who they are and whether they're true Libertarians or not.

Yeah. I kind of went off topic there. But mainly, I was trying to express the idea that: I really don't think that people do things purely out of self interest. And if that idea is at the heart of Libertarianism, that would explain a lot about why I find it rather confusing.

(But: I don't understand by "willpower and free will are interchangeable". I'm not sure that's what I was talking about at all. I was saying that "there are experiences that it is not possible to choose (by willpower) to have", in that case, contrasted with my friend's belief that "there is no experience that someone lacking perfect willpower can have that cannot be had by someone who has perfect willpower".)

Edit: Because they are good. Because the very definition of being good is doing those things [em]because they are right, without any regard for a reward[/em].

To suggest that the only possible motivation is a selfish one, you (in my opinion) [em]deny the very existence of goodness[/em]. If you make it a neurochemical basis, you say "We are exactly what we are conditioned to be", whereas I say "We may choose to be anything we wish, history be damned."

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