Deontological libertarianism

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

(also known as rights-theorist libertarianism, natural rights libertarianism, or libertarian moralism) refers to the view that all acts of initiation of force and fraud should be opposed because they are always immoral regardless of the effects of engaging in them. This is one of the two ethical view points within libertarianism

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

, the other being consequentialist libertarianism

Consequentialist libertarianism

Consequentialist libertarianism refers to the view that liberty leads to favorable consequences such as prosperity, efficiency, or peace, and for that reason should be supported, advocated, and maximized...

, which holds that liberty should be supported and maximized because it leads to good consequences regardless of whether doing so involves initiation of force. Deontological libertarianism is based on the non-aggression principle

Non-aggression principle

The non-aggression principle , or NAP for short, is a moral stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate...

, which states that no human being holds the right to initiate force or fraud against the person or property

Property

Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

 of another human being, under any circumstances. Deontological libertarians consider this principle to be the basis of all morality, and therefore they believe that any violation of the principle is immoral, no matter what other arguments may be invoked to justify that violation.

Deontological libertarian philosophies

Some deontological libertarians such as Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...

 and Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....

 advocate a minimal government

Minarchism

Minarchism has been variously defined by sources. It is a libertarian capitalist political philosophy. In the strictest sense, it maintains that the state is necessary and that its only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and...

 to protect individuals from any violation of their rights, and to prosecute those who initiate force against others. Others, such as Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard

Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...

, advocate the abolition of the state, as they see the state as being an institutionalized initiation of force due to taxation. Their view of natural rights is derived, directly or indirectly, from the writings of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...

 and John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

. They therefore become libertarian anarchists

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

 or anarcho-capitalists

Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...

.

Criticisms

Some libertarians argue that a relaxation of the non-aggression principle can bring the greatest liberty to the greatest number. Rothbard responded to this criticism by asserting that the means ought never to contradict the ends. Consequentialist libertarians ask, "What authoritative force endowed me, and every other human being alive, with the right and responsibility of self-ownership

Self-ownership

Self-ownership is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his own body and life. According to G...

? How does one prove, substantiate, or justify its existence?" Murray Rothbard dismissed this criticism by appealing to a process of elimination, claiming that 100% self-ownership is the only defensible ethical position.

Philosopher Jonathan Wolff criticizes deontological libertarianism as incoherent, writing that it is incapable of explaining why harm suffered by the losers in economic competition does not violate the principle of self-ownership, and that its advocates must "dishonestly smuggle" consequentialist arguments into their reasoning to justify the institution of the free market.