Parents Can Starve Their Own Children?
Where the great Murray Rothbard goes careening off the rails…
As an ardent devotee of classical-liberal principles and ideas, I think from time to time about the contrasts between the two main inheritors of the (classical) liberal tradition: conservatives and libertarians.
What are the differences? Why can't we, joint heirs of the ideas that built the modern world, get along? The contours of that debate could fill volumes, so I'll just quickly focus on one aspect here: libertarian principles vs. conservative instincts
Libertarians, generally speaking, are more doctrinaire and focused on first principles. There has been some recent drift away from that in recent years, to the point where “libertarian” is starting to mean a bunch of things it didn't used to mean (and probably shouldn't mean). In general, however, libertarians have been more interested in analyzing first principles and playing them out into prescriptions about public policy (or lack thereof, in the case of full anarcho-libertarians).
Conservatism is a bit more complicated.
There is a strain in conservatism that intentionally rejects doctrine and ideology in favor of reverence for established patterns and a general caution about rapid change. (I am typing on a wobbly table at a Chinese buffet, so I am not going to look up a bunch of quotes right now, but you can see some of them in this article by author Robert Bidinotto.)
This sort of conservative is wary of any discussion of fixed principles As it turns out, however, much of what conservatives are conserving is, in fact, a set of principles…or at very least the results of the application of a set of principles…
The accumulated wisdom, traditions, culture, and social and legal norms of the countries of the English-speaking world are built from, and inextricably linked with, classical-liberal ideas. These ideas have enough force to produce principles and doctrines. Natural rights, free markets, the sovereignty of the individual human person—and the need for government to protect, but never molest, these things—are all principles to which conservatives adhere. Even those who are, in principle, wary of principles!
These principles are also more consonant with natural law, and with organic and evolved human wisdom, so when conservatives seek to conserve such wisdom, they are in fact conserving classical-liberal principles.
And yet it is easy to understand why conservatives of the Burkean/Kirkean/Buckleyite variety would be wary of explicit ideology and doctrine.
Bad ideologies are just about the most dangerous force in the world. They can provide justification for people (people who might otherwise have been perfectly normal) to do terrible things. Human history—and most especially the history of the totalitarian monstrosities of the 20th century—stands in grim testimony to the destructive power of bad ideologies. Better no ideology at all than a bad one.
Yet even good ideologies can go wrong when they become unmoored from accumulated human wisdom. The late Murray Rothbard provides one such example.
Rothbard is a titan of the libertarian pantheon. He was prolific, brilliant, accomplished, and highly influential. Reading him, and listening to his lectures, you get the impression that he'd read every book in the known universe over the course of his long and illustrious career.
In his work as a libertarian (specifically an anarcho-libertarian) theoretician, he was following classical-liberal principles to the conclusions to which he believed they led. The result cumulatively was a massive—and, in the main, positive—contribution to the vast corpus of classical-liberal thought.
But there was at least one point on which he went horribly wrong:
but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.
In The Ethics of Liberty, as in his other works, Rothbard provides compelling reasons to believe that his conclusions will advance the cause of human liberty. But he goes way off the rails with this children-starving notion.
Briefly, here is why:
Parents are the cause of their children's existence. Thus, in my view, they have an obligation to take care of them, just as you are obliged in any situation in which you have acquired some responsibility.
For example, let us say you knock over your neighbor’s fence with your lawn tractor. You are the cause of the damage; thus, you are responsible and can be required to provide restitution. We can call this the responsibility principle.
Rothbard would argue that driving a lawn tractor through a fence is a positive act tantamount to force (whether accidental or not), whereas the denial of food to a child is a negative act—simply not doing something.
Rothbard is focused on principle—in this case, the nonaggression principle (NAP) and the impermissibility of the initiation of coercive force. The NAP says that you may be subjected to (protective) force only if you have yourself first initiated (coercive) force. Not feeding your children is not an initiation of force; it is only the failure to provide food.
As attractive as boiling everything down to a single principle might be—and as close as the NAP comes to being that principle—it is possible to have more than one principle. I believe the responsibility principle has a place in our ethos (and over a thousand years of common law agrees).
Indeed, I believe I can even justify this, and integrate it with the NAP, in the following way:
Imagine that you accidentally set your neighbor’s house on fire, and a bucket of water (or fire extinguisher) is sitting right next to you. You could easily put the fire out and limit the damage you have caused to a few square inches of countertop. Instead, you watch it burn for a while, and then head outside and watch the whole house—and all your neighbor’s irreplaceable things—reduced to a pile of ash.
You were the cause of a situation, and there was an action you could have taken to mitigate the damage you caused. I believe you are required to take that action. My argument is that part of the responsibility principle is the sub-principle that in a situation in which one has acquired responsibility, the act of not acting in an act in itself.
You are not required to act if you did not cause the fire, but you are if you did. Your obligations will certainly be greater if you allow the whole thing to the burn to the ground than if you simply scorch a section of countertop!
If you want this put even more starkly… Imagine that you accidentally knock your neighbor’s infant child into the river. You could easily hop in and pull out the baby—wet, but none the worse otherwise. Or you can let the baby be swept out to sea.
Presumably, Rothbard would argue that the difference lies in my claim that parents have acquired responsibility by causing their children to exist—that that is not actually responsibility the way knocking a baby into the river is.
I say it absolutely is a form of responsibility, and thus carries with it the same obligations. The obligation to rescue the baby from drowning = The obligation to keep your children from starving.
The anti-principles conservative hears this conversation and is horrified beyond belief.
What is wrong with you people? Nearly every every person on Earth knows that parents must not let their children starve. Nearly every parent on Earth would be horrified by assertions to the contrary. Perhaps there is a good reason for that. Why are you fishing around for principles to justify—or to deny, for the love of God—something that we just know to be good and true?
It’s an understandable reaction.
I personally believe that principles are extremely important. I have devoted a tremendous amount of effort, over the last 15 years or so, to learning about, discovering, and justifying those principles. My instinct is not simply to accept a thing because it has long been done that way. I want to know whether we can figure out a principled reason why.
But when a focus on principle leads to a conclusion that runs counter to every natural instinct we have, perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board.
Principles do matter. Good ideas can overcome bad ideas, and if we can justify those good ideas by means of logic, we ought to do so. Yet all of this must also be tempered by restraint, humility, and wisdom, and that is where this conservative approach excels.
The ultimate victory of human liberty depends on the success of classical liberalism. And classical liberalism would benefit greatly from an increase in ideological coherence, and comity, among conservatives and libertarians. If we can learn from each other, and work better together, the individual human person will be the ultimate beneficiary.
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I have heard of Rothbard but I haven't read his writings, and probably, after reading that one section, never will. Comparatively, I guess I'm a lightweight critical thinker. Careening off the rails is an understatement.
I am a big proponent of principles, but find myself living in a world without any. Sadly, I find myself in a personal dilemma with my two oldest grandchildren that has changed the dynamics of the holiday season for us. Without going into all the sordid details, the traditional Christmas has ended because both have crossed the line of civility for my husband and me. We can no longer go along to get along. After a period of angst, I have come to terms with our decision and am at peace with it. Fortunately, my daughter understands and has accepted our decision to bow out. We will celebrate with her and my youngest grandson the day after Christmas. The compromise that we can live with is sending the two older ones a card with some money. I still love them, but I can't be around them unless they make amends for their past behavior, but I have no expectations. I'm still unsure if this is the correct course of action, but I think it's one I can bear. I am trying to send the message that we are held accountable for our actions. At least, that's how it happens in my world.
I found this article particularly thought provoking for me personally. It made me quite aware that what I consider as principles universally shared are no longer a given.