For as frequently as I have defended Ron Paul against his detractors, it may surprise some readers to discover that while I consider myself to be something of a libertarian, philosophically speaking, I am poles apart from the libertarianism of which Paul is such an impassioned supporter.<\/p>\n
In contemporary politics, and, indeed, contemporary life, it is not at all uncommon to hear partisans speak of the \u201cphilosophical<\/em>\u201d <\/em>differences between themselves and their opponents.\u00a0 Few people, though, really understand what philosophy is.\u00a0 This is no criticism; even those of us who make our living as philosophers have not infrequently found ourselves divided as to the character of our craft.<\/p>\n However, whatever our differences, one thing seems certain: that two (or more) people disagree over any given policy or set of policies might <\/em>indicate that they are philosophically at odds with one another; it does not <\/em>entail this. Just the slightest reflection upon a couple of examples readily bears this out.<\/p>\n Take the issue of the death penalty.\u00a0 Joe favors the use of capital punishment while Bill opposes it.\u00a0 We have, then, a conflict over policy.\u00a0 But if Joe endorses capital punishment because he believes that it deters potential murderers from becoming actual murderers, and Bill opposes capital punishment because he does not believe that it is the deterrent that Joe thinks it is, then far from there being a philosophical divide between Bill and Joe, the two are actually of one mind.\u00a0 Whether they recognize it or not, inasmuch as both Bill and Joe evaluate the moral worth of the death penalty in terms of its results alone, they are proponents of the moral philosophy known as utilitarianism.\u00a0 <\/em>From this perspective, the moral permissibility of any action is determined solely<\/em> by its consequences.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s now consider another scenario.<\/p>\n This time, Bill and Joe are in complete agreement that capital punishment is a good thing that should be regularly implemented.\u00a0 However, they support it for different reasons.\u00a0 Bill defends capital punishment on retributive <\/em>grounds.\u00a0 Along with the eighteenth century philosopher Immanuel Kant, he argues that justice demands that, the consequences of the practice of the death penalty aside, every murderer must <\/em>be made to part with his life.\u00a0 Joe, in stark contrast, continues to support capital punishment because of his belief that its administration will ultimately deter murder.<\/p>\n Here we witness nothing less than an unequivocal clash between two mutually antagonistic philosophical standpoints.\u00a0<\/p>\n In short, in order for there to exist a genuinely philosophical dispute, the formal suppositions underwriting the substance of one discussant\u2019s position must be incompatible with those informing that of the other\u2019s.<\/p>\n When it comes to most issues, I find myself generally in agreement with Congressman Paul.\u00a0 That is, if Paul is a libertarian, then insofar as I tend to sympathize with the bulk of his positions on the topics that concern him, then neither, I suppose, is it inappropriate to ascribe the \u201clibertarian\u201d label to my views.\u00a0 The difference, though, between us is that Paul\u2019s libertarianism <\/em>is a doctrine.\u00a0 <\/em>My \u201clibertarianism\u201d is not.\u00a0 In other words, I have a libertarian disposition<\/em>; I do not subscribe to some comprehensive creed called \u201clibertarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n The distinction between Paul\u2019s thought and mine can be cast in other, perhaps clearer, terms.\u00a0 I am disposed to be a libertarian because <\/em>I am disposed to be conservative.\u00a0 <\/em>In this regard, I am no different from David Hume, Edmund Burke, or any number of thinkers associated with the conservative intellectual tradition.\u00a0 This tradition, we must recall, originally emerged precisely in order to combat the rationalistic excesses of an alternative Enlightenment tradition\u2014a tradition of which Congressman Paul and virtually every other contemporary political actor are heirs.<\/p>\n Hume and Burke are \u201clibertarians\u201d (\u201cliberal\u201d in the classical and best sense of the term) in that they affirmed and defended the liberty of their fellows as emphatically and consistently as anyone of their generation (or ours).\u00a0 But they are conservatives because, unlike their rationalistic peers (and ours), they were acutely aware that this liberty, far from being the trans-historical, trans-cultural abstraction to which every human being who has ever lived has an \u201cinalienable right,\u201d was in fact a concrete, historically and culturally centered phenomenon or \u201cinheritance,\u201d as Burke described it.\u00a0 Indeed, they recognized that, ultimately, there is no liberty; <\/em>there are only liberties.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Hume and Burke, for as different from one another in many regards as they undoubtedly were, knew that the universalistic and rationalistic rhetorical fictions of \u201cThe Rights of Man,\u201d \u201cthe social contract,\u201d and the like, though intended to reference timeless, \u201cself-evident\u201d truths, were nothing more or less than sloppy distillations of the English tradition.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t to say, of course, that this tradition couldn\u2019t be shared with others.\u00a0 Yet the rights to habeas corpus, free speech, and all of the other liberties of which this system consists and which was centuries in the making is as English as the English language itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Hume, Burke, and the conservative theorists who they inspired set their sights on \u201cliberty,\u201d it was something local with which they were concerned.\u00a0<\/p>\n Contemporary political discourse proves that the liberty that engages the affections of Ron Paul as well as, <\/em>interestingly enough, his opponents<\/em>, is a very different sort of object.\u00a0 This liberty is a \u201cHuman Right\u201d that, as such, owes nothing to the contingencies of place and time, culture and history.\u00a0 Preceding all human societies, it is the <\/em>standard by which each is to be measured.\u00a0 The institutional arrangements of society embody <\/em>or express <\/em>liberty; they do not, as they do for Hume and Burke, constitute <\/em>it.\u00a0 I believe it is this ubiquitous negligence of the culturally-specific grounding of our liberties that accounts for Ron Paul\u2019s (and mostly everyone else\u2019s) sore neglect of our immigration-related problems.<\/p>\n Still, in spite of my theoretical disagreements with him, practically speaking, Ron Paul is a true champion of our liberties.\u00a0 For this reason, I will, I am sure, continue to defend him against the unfair attacks with which he has been bombarded.<\/p>\n Jack\u00a0Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n originally published at The New American\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For as frequently as I have defended Ron Paul against his detractors, it may surprise some readers to discover that while I consider myself to be something of a libertarian, philosophically speaking, I am poles apart from the libertarianism of which Paul is such an impassioned supporter. In contemporary politics, and, indeed, contemporary life, it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n