It is a popular notion within the libertarian elite that conservatives who adhere to traditional morality cannot be libertarian. The libertarians see a desire on the part of moral conservatives to ‘impose’ their vision of the moral good life on society as a central feature distinguishing them from those who are committed to ‘leaving people alone.’ Many social conservatives also have a problem identifying with right-wing hippies calling for hard drug legalization and normalized prostitution.
However, a philosophy which calls for a protection of traditional morality (social conservatism) and one which is committed to individual rights and opposition to coercion (libertarianism) can both be held by a single individual.
I was recently reminded of the great perceived gulf between the two groups after attending a recent libertarian seminar hosted by the Institute for Liberal Studies. The Liberty Summer Seminar brings together students to a rural southern Ontario retreat to hear a wide array of libertarian and classical liberal speakers. Mainstays include Professor Emeritus Jan Narveson, a well-published guru of modern Canadian libertarianism and Karen Selick, a libertarian lawyer who recently contributed to a column in the Western Standard.
As an evangelical Christian with social conservative inclinations (I am pro-life and oppose legalized same sex marriage), I attended in order to test my own commitment to libertarianism. Throughout my life, I have found the orthodoxy of libertarianism to be compelling, and strongly believe individual rights and lack of coercion should define political action. Over the years, I have gone from espousing simple fiscal conservatism to a belief structure that questions government monopolies in all areas, including health care and education. Being influenced in university by liberal thinkers like Richard Rorty and Ronald Dworkin also helped spur my beliefs towards libertarianism, as did reading the classic libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick.
I was never more struck by this gap than when I heard pot activist Marc Emery speak at the Seminar. A hardened advocate for the legalization of marijuana, most of his venom was reserved not for statists or socialists, but for social conservatives. Left wing activists, we were told, could be reached by libertarianism because of their idealism. Social conservatives, on the other hand, were hateful homophobes who could not really be reached by the message of liberty. It was this message I strongly disagreed with. Although I had never really been attracted to the pot legalization debate and found the drug culture alien to my upbringing, I found myself in agreement with many of Emery’s sentiments. What I wanted to tell Emery was that many of my beliefs in liberty had actually been nurtured by my faith journey and social conservative beliefs.
The problem with Emery’s conception, and that of many who claim to adhere to libertarianism, is that they seem to identify social liberalism or a preference for libertine moral behaviour with libertarianism. Even many libertarian parties, including the Freedom Party in Canada, stress their “social liberalism” as a draw to potential voters[i]. The problem is that social liberalism is not synonymous with libertarianism as libertarianism is really more about a framework for governing and does not address the essential goodness or badness of actions, beyond the morality of choice and coercion. An individual libertarian can certainly understand that liberty is connected to morality and that a good society can only exist as long as it is comprised of good men and women. Perhaps this explains the words of Benjamin Franklin after the ratification of the American Constitution when he said the framers were giving the people a “republic, if you can keep it.” It was understood that limited government could not exist within a moral collapse. Therefore, modern libertarians need not be neutral on issues like the moral direction of society, as long as they do not insist on collectivizing their own vision on to everyone.
For example, while accepting that individuals have a right to choose to take drugs without criminal sanction, a libertarian may personally believe drugs are harmful and should be avoided. This is roughly analogous to the Apostle Paul’s admonition in the Epistle to the Corinthians that while all things are lawful, not all things are beneficial to us.[ii] A libertarian may initiate private action to convince others that drugs are harmful and still maintain the commitment to liberty. A libertarian may strongly believe in an Objective Good and Truth without compromising his or her libertarian credentials. The difference is that the social conservative libertarian believes that one comes to knowledge of Objective Good through persuasion and choice, not through coercion or government sanction.
AYN RAND AND LIBERTARIANISM
A central problem between both libertarians and social conservatives is that many adherents on both sides have identified certain atheistic frameworks, particularly Randian objectivism, within libertarianism itself. While many social conservatives – myself included – find Ayn Rand’s works extremely appealing in terms of her emphasis on individual rights and capitalism, most are turned off by her strident atheism.
Many libertarians are also quick to point to their commitment to reason and identify it with atheism, as if that is the only logical stance that reason can produce. Even in libertarian publications, such as Reason magazine, much ink has been spilled on pieces exposing the ‘dangers’ of social conservatism. The danger in this is that it risks identifying an anti-religious or atheistic mindset with libertarianism when in fact libertarianism is ultimately neutral on the subject.
It is always important to remember that libertarianism is not in and of itself a metaphysical stance. It does not really tell us about the spiritual realm or questions related to the afterlife. As a philosophy committed to liberty and choice, it allows individuals and communities formed by individuals to make these choices. While Ayn Rand often spoke about objectivism as a philosophy for “living on earth” and addressed the “irrationality” of spirituality and religion, her ideas should not be considered as the definitive statement on the philosophy of minimalist government. Rand herself repudiated the label libertarian and spoke against its adherents.
While it stands to reason that one cannot be a Christian objectivist, one can certainly be a Christian libertarian, or a traditional Jewish or Sikh libertarian. As long as the moral code you adopt is binding on only yourself through choice, or within communities of voluntary will, there is no contradiction.
INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE AND SOCIAL CONSERVATISM
While I can only speak on behalf of my own evangelical Christian beliefs, I am of the understanding that most major religious communities identifying with social conservatism are at least united in the belief that one comes to the Divine through the use of the individual will and conscience. Despite historic blending of religion and politics (with often disastrous results), many religious communities nowadays have at least partly embraced the belief that coming to the knowledge of the truth of faith is through voluntary action at an individual level, although there is unfortunately still pressure and coercion in certain contexts. While Protestants have always emphasized individualism, Roman Catholics have now embraced a view where faith is thankfully disentangled from politics, unlike as it was in the past. Even many Islamic social conservatives who could find blending politics and religion less problematic understand that the individual professes faith in the Shahada that there is one God and Muhammad is his Prophet, although many Muslims see faith as being expressed within community and many still support imposed Sharia law.
Thus, it would be illogical for a social conservative to declare that they want to impose their beliefs and morality on society. That would be a violation of the right of religious conscience. Within the New Testament, Christ spoke often of the Kingdom of God in the future tense and as distinct from the earthly realm. His will was that individuals come to repentance and change their individual lives. There was never any mention of imposing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth or forcing people to accept beliefs they disagreed with. After all, most of the sins and sanctions mentioned within the Bible are applicable only to Christians who voluntarily accept them. This is one area social conservatives need to work on. Without compromising their beliefs, their judgments could be better spent in making existing believers more committed than in judging those who do not come under their moral code. This would entail social conservatives disentangling their morality from the justice system, which may prove a problem with some.
This social conservative belief in individual conscience is what allows it to enter into conversation with libertarianism. If religious conviction is ultimately private, there is room for other conceptions of the moral good life in society. It would be immoral to impose a religious vision on another. It stands to reason within most religions or moral codes that they are more meaningful if they are arrived at through genuine faith coming from the individual.
Therefore, there is absolutely no contradiction between holding social conservative beliefs and being libertarian as a matter of policy. As long as social conservatives do not try to legislate their values or impose them on others, they are following the libertarian commitment of respect for individual rights.[iii]
What modern social conservatives really want is space to live out their morality. They are bothered by the secularization that has engulfed our society. They are angered that their children are forced to learn subjects at school they oppose. Many religious communities adhering to social conservatism have retreated to their own parallel societies, which include separate schools and other social organizations. They have established their own media and publishing houses. This is why so many social conservatives are concerned about issues like home schooling and the right to teach their own school curricula. In other words, they are taking pluralism seriously. As will be shown, social conservative communities can easily be accommodated within the framework of libertarian thought if libertarians take their commitment to pluralism seriously.
If libertarians respect individual rights and oppose coercion, how can they be opposed to persons exercising their right to remove themselves from state institutions? Is this not the ultimate act of libertarian defiance? How can a libertarian have no problem with a heroin addict injecting herself with harmful drugs, yet take issue with a social conservative professing belief in Creationism or wanting to establish a home on conservative religious principles? Having such an inconsistent sentiment, I submit, tells us more about the prejudice of individual libertarians than with actual libertarian philosophy. In fact, such philosophy tells a different story.
NOZICK’S UTOPIA AND SOCIAL CONSERVATISM
Robert Nozick is one of the world’s pre-eminent libertarian philosophers. When the American thinker published Anarchy, State and Utopia in the 1970s, he created respectability for libertarianism within academia and within the wider community. In it, Nozick presented a well-reasoned argument for minimalist government. While many focus on Nozick’s entitlement theory or his arguments against redistribution, they forget his ideas about utopia.
Within his utopian framework, he found room for communities that were not necessarily founded on liberal principles, such as social conservative communities. While everyone could be bound to a state that existed to provide protection against force, theft, fraud and enforcement of contract, Nozick conceded the possibility that voluntary communities could exist that were based on other rules frameworks.
These utopian frameworks permitted as many people as possible to live as closely as possible to the ways in which they want to live. There was room for a pluralist utopia within the minimalist state. People were free to voluntarily join together to actualize their own view of the good life. Within this conception, Nozick envisioned many types of voluntary associations and utopian experiments and lifestyles springing up spontaneously within a minimalist state. Historically, one thinks of separate religious communities established by Protestant reformers such as John Calvin as falling within this category. Calvin’s Christian community in Geneva, Switzerland imposed strict moral regulations on its members, yet existed within a secular society. Even within the United States, social conservative religious communities have experimented with voluntary moral societies.
While the state itself could go no further than enforce contracts, voluntary communities could enforce regulations of moral conduct or lifestyle. This would involve acceptance of codes that would seem to be illiberal on their face, such as differing gender relations as under Jewish or Muslim law, as long as it truly voluntary. The only role of the minimal state would be in ensuring that individuals are not being coerced. Of course, the details of how this would be enforced would fill a separate paper all in itself. If modern libertarians took this approach to pluralism seriously, they would respect the right of dissident social conservatives to live according to the moral code they wish. It is also logical that a libertarian committed to minimal government could also voluntarily enter into a utopian community that imposed strict moral regulations that would not be possible within the minimal state.
TOUGH ISSUES FOR SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES
While it can be demonstrated that social conservatism and libertarianism are compatible at a philosophical level, fears of an imposed theocracy are not completely unfounded.
While it seems reasonable that North American and European states would not accept an imposed Christian order similar to an Islamic Sharia concept, many libertarians become scared when they hear Christians speak about Canada and the United States as “Christian nations”, or hear social conservatives refer to laws based on the ‘Judeo-Christian ethic.’
However, these issues are largely symbolic. To accept that our nations were founded by Christian adherents is to acknowledge history. At present, social conservatives in both Canada and the U.S. are more concerned with issues related to the expunging of religious references in public life. Most modern social conservatives accept the reality of increased immigration from non-Christian countries and what that means to society. Hence, most social conservatives call for voluntary prayer in schools or at graduation ceremonies. Gone are the days when social conservatives championed the return of mandatory prayer. Some still do, but they do not represent mainstream social conservatism. Nowadays, social conservatives are more concerned with the right to speak openly about their faith or to have it represented within the public discourse.
What presents problems are specific issues where social conservative political action conflicts with libertarianism. However, it can be argued that these issues do not necessarily derive only from a social conservative framework, or can also represent issues that divide the libertarian community itself.
Opposition to same sex marriage can derive from secularism. An identification of marriage with procreation and the raising of children is widely held within secular society, not just religious society. Large majorities in the United States oppose extension of marriage benefits to gays and lesbians, yet it would be incorrect to identify all of them as social conservative. The definition of marriage is an important issue within society and has societal impact, thus it would be fair for same sex marriage to be identified as an issue that could divide secular society. Where this issue extends to conflict with libertarianism is for sporadic calls within the social conservative community for criminalization of homosexual acts. However, these calls are few and far between, and don’t represent mainstream social conservatism.
Issues of respect for the sanctity of human life can present conflicts, although this need not be the case. The issue of when human life begins has divided society for centuries. Why assume that libertarians will have any more universal agreement on the issue? While it could be proven true that most libertarians identify as pro-choice, it could be argued that one could arrive at an anti-abortion position from a libertarian perspective. Indeed, organizations like Libertarians for Life do just that. In stating that denying personhood to unborn life is a violation of individual rights, these groups argue that no government or individual has a just power to legally de-personify anyone.[iv] After all, if abortion is murder, within a libertarian society, it would be impermissible for everyone and a minimal state must protect its citizen against murder.
The two problematic issues seem to be euthanasia and prostitution. Preventing someone from dying at their time of choosing seems to be contrary to individual rights. However, if the argument is against positive euthanasia (refers to actions that actively cause death such as lethal injection) then the issue can be reconciled with liberty. If abortion can be seen as a violation of the person by a libertarian, then so-called mercy killing would violate the autonomy of individuals. The issue really surrounds allowing individuals to choose their own deaths. While allowing an individual the right to deny treatment in case of entering a vegetative state seems consistent with liberty and faith, the right of free-standing individuals to commit suicide upon acquiring debilitating disorders presents serious problems. It seems intuitive that individual rights should include this right. However, there are concerns that need to be addressed by the libertarian, including the issue of whether individuals are under such temporary pain which could impair judgment. One could argue that a minimal state could prohibit such actions on the grounds of preventing potential abuse. However, it is logical that any social conservative professing libertarianism would want to ensure maximum freedom in end-of-life issues.
On the issue of prostitution, social conservative-minded libertarians are presented with a dilemma over whether to allow sexual autonomy for individuals. If they accept that individual liberty comes prior to societal good, they would agree that the state should not pass anti-prostitution laws. This is very difficult for many social conservatives to accept, but perhaps they need to shift thinking on the issue. Opposing such practices on moral and religious grounds does not give one the right to enforce laws against it. Social conservatives need to remember that their own moral code is not binding on non-believers. However, there certainly is room for social conservative concern for the victims of prostitution and clearly this does not preclude private persuasion against it in all its forms.
CONCLUSION
Clearly, both libertarianism and social conservatism need to be re-thought. If libertarianism is not a synonym for social liberalism or even a metaphysical theory, there is no reason to exclude social conservatives, or to identify libertarianism with atheistic objectivism. While libertarianism advocates lifting of restraints on moral behaviour, it should never be identified specifically with the condoning of certain moral actions or a particular morality. Libertarianism is a noble theory that elevates individuals by allowing them to make such choices.
Such choice includes the right of social conservative to adopt their beliefs and to advocate for them. Social conservatives, however, must accept the existence of other communities that enjoy equal rights as they do. If a social conservative accepts libertarianism, they must adopt a framework allowing other lifestyles to thrive. By taking seriously the utopian framework offered by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, libertarians should celebrate the right of social conservative religious communities to thrive within a minimal state. It can also be seen how the social conservative impulse to create parallel social institutions is consistent with the libertarian desire to reduce state power over individuals.
Once both social conservatives and libertarians accept their commonalities, then they can continue on with the larger work of creating a strong conservative movement.
[i] Freedom Party of Canada website: http://www.freedomparty.ca
[ii] 1 Corinthians 10:23 , New International Version
[iii] Martin Masse, “What the rising tide against statism in Quebec means for Canadian conservatives,” Le Quebecois Libre, May 15, 2004, No. 142
[iv] Article on “Libertarians for Life” http://en.wikipediaorg.org/wiki/Libertarians_for_Life
