The Philosophy of Freedom

by Caleb Nelson

  [437]

  Rights can become very complex, especially when considering water rights, air quality, etc. Just because the issues become complex, however, doesn’t make it okay to throw up our hands and give up trying to sort it out or merely resort to the force of government. It is precisely when issues appear complicated and tangled that the utmost care must be taken to sort out the principles involved, and base decisions accordingly. Many issues require the advice of specialists in law philosophy, land rights, ecology, etc. We will not presume here to have the answer to all environmental issues or conflicts that may arise between men. We do, however, have the key principles that will unlock the door to solutions and moral decision-making.

  Capitalism recognizes and protects each individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Most people rationally recognize that in order to live well, they need a clean environment and resources to use carefully, while planning for the future.

  The next principle is stewardship. As the right of property is protected and understood, and as individuals are educated as to their effects on the environment, the principle of stewardship will increasingly result in effective and productive use of that property. Just as most people feel a sense of pride through ownership of their own home and land, and thus seek to maintain and improve it, so rational business owners and large landowners also seek to constantly improve their property. Nature must come to be seen as a responsibility, not to government, but to oneself, to improve and productively use.

  It is contrary to the proper role of government to mandate, or attempt to mandate, responsible use of nature, except when improper use is objectively proven to violate the individual rights of others.

  THE PROPER PRINCIPLES

  The ideas necessary for a principled understanding of environmentalism and of the proper relationship between man and nature include the following:

  · “Environmentalism,” as an ideology or movement, is not meant to support and protect human life, but to support and protect nature, even at the expense of human life;

  · Ownership (i.e. property rights and the social system which recognizes and protects them) and stewardship are the proper principles to govern man’s interaction with nature;

  · “Environmentalism” has been co-opted by Progressives to give motive power to their statist agenda;

  · Persuasion and education are the moral tactics that should be used to further a healthy earth-man relationship, rather than coercion and government force.

  Review

  Q1: Why doesn’t it matter, morally and politically, if the earth is warming or not?

  Q2: Contrast the perceived environmental movement with its actual declared principles.

  Q3: How is environmentalism used as a political weapon?

  Q4: Describe how ownership and stewardship solve ecological concerns.

  Chapter 21: Social Issues

  THE SEPARATION OF MARRIAGE AND STATE

  The 2008 controversy over Proposition 8 in California, as well as many other state and federal initiatives aiming to either limit marriage privileges to the traditional man and woman, or extend the privilege to any individuals who wish to be married, clearly illustrates that this country is very divided on the issue of same-sex marriage. It need not be, and an identification of the principles involved will highlight this for the reader.

  First of all, marriage is not a right. It is, however, an exercise of the right to liberty and freedom of conscience. As it is now, a marriage recognized by the state is a privilege for which licenses are given, similar to the idea behind the issuance of driver’s licenses. The contention arises when the state includes the gender of the applying individuals as a basis for granting or denying a license.

  To determine if this is right or wrong, and what actions should be taken to correct it, let us recall the definition, nature, and history of marriage.

  Marriage is a social union or agreement between two people that creates a kinship; it usually involves some sort of ceremony.

  In ancient Greece, no specific ceremony was needed, merely mutual agreement. There is also no “long-term” tradition of marriage between a man and a woman, nor has it always been the same type of relationship it is considered today. Polygamy was common in ancient times, and in many cultures women were not viewed as an equal partner but as a servant or a child-bearer or as a means to unite separate family lines.

  The early Christian Church mandated that its members should only marry with the approval of the bishop. Thus marriage became primarily, in Europe, at least, a religious rite. Registration of this rite passed to the “State” during the Protestant Reformation, and by the 17th century most European nations had state involvement in marriages. State involvement is perpetuated today because of:

  · Tradition;

  · Expediency in many statist programs, entitlements and incentives;

  · The State’s desire to exert control over the lives of its citizens.

  The foundational problem with this controversy is that marriage has become a state institution, rather than, or in addition to, its traditional religious, personal, or cultural foundation. In maintaining control of this institution, the government is violating the individual rights of its citizens by restricting legal recognition to some, while infringing on the consciences and personal judgments of everyone.

  To further complicate matters, other privileges granted by government (1,138 total

  [438] ) have been bundled up with marital status and are thus typically only accessible to those who are legally married. These include social security benefits, tax breaks, exemptions, and Medicare benefits. For some same-sex couples who want to get married, the debate is not so much about approval of their relationship by the state, but rather having access to those privileges now tangled up in it. Most, if not all, of the privileges now associated with marriage are functions of a statist government and their existence hinges on laws and institutions which violate rights. In a rights-respecting government, such laws and institutions would not exist and therefore neither would any sort of the statist privileges as we currently have. Government would have no role in ruling on hospital visitation. Social security survivor benefits would become a null issue with no welfare state, and so on.

  Individuals have the right to act on their own judgment as long as they do not violate the right of others. Same-sex marriage does not violate anyone’s rights—it initiates force against no one. (The exceptions to this are the politically militant pro-homosexuals who constantly attempt to use the power of government to force others to do what they wish, as in the case of the couple who sued the baker for refusing to bake them a cake for their wedding.) The proper role of government is to protect rights, not to authorize or deny to its citizens whatever definition of family and kinship they desire to pursue.

  Marriage is (or should be returned to its source as) a cultural or religious ceremony, or ritual; in other words, a privatized ceremony. It is to celebrate and approve of the joining of individuals in a commitment of love.

  THE SOLUTION

  What must be advocated, therefore, is the separation of marriage and state, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of church and state. With this solution in place, we will see the following results:

  · Same-gender couples can marry if they so desire, and if they can find a way to perform the ceremony, (if they even desire a ceremony at all).

  · Political and contractual agreements would have to replace and function in political and economic arenas in the ways “marriage” was previously treated by government. This could be done via civil union, or “Family Contract,” or “Contract of Kinship.” These would be available to all individuals. Families previously married under license by the state could file one of these new contracts to continue under the same legal recognition that their “marriage” previously enjoyed.

  In this way, all individuals can easily access all the legal rights available to them, while the government c
ould not discriminate and imply approval or disapproval of the private lives of the citizens under its protection. It should appear to all as a win-win situation. The only people who would not be satisfied are those who would force their beliefs on others.

  Some groups and churches have opposed such solutions on the understandable grounds that they are worried about lawsuits if gay marriage is legalized, as a result of which they might be forced to perform such ceremonies against their religious beliefs and rules. It should be common sense that consenting adults should be able to obtain all the same rights and privileges as any other person. At the same time, those who worry about protecting their religious traditions/rules, should not be forced, by fear of a lawsuit, to perform something their tradition considers a sin. Such fears must be assuaged by a strong guarantee of the protection of religious freedom and the objective separation of Church and State.

  ABORTION

  Abortion is a complex and emotional issue. Its complexity is exacerbated in the political and ethical realms by incomplete human understanding of the process and definition of human life. Reliance on certain principles, however, may still offer us some guidance as the human family comes to understand this issue more completely.

  THE CONTROVERSY

  There are two main points of controversy: the genesis of human life, and individual rights.

  HUMAN LIFE

  A major hurdle to a common understanding is coming to an agreement on when, exactly, human life begins. This is both a metaphysical and ethical debate. Is it at conception? When the heart starts beating? When brain activity begins? When pain is felt? At full term? When the fetus becomes “viable”? After birth when breathing and digestion begin independently?

  We don’t know, and there is much debate on the matter.

  Perhaps, to determine if a fetus is human life or not, we could remove the context of this planet. Imagine if we discovered some cells on a distant planet that were identical to the ones found in a developing fetus. Wouldn’t scientists be excited that they found, not just life on another planet, but life like ours—human life?

  HUMAN RIGHTS

  The other point of contention is a political one. The mother owns her own body and has a right to do with it as she pleases. Does this agency extend only until conception or all the way until birth? What about in cases of incest or rape, when it was not the mother’s choice to conceive? What about danger to the mother from prenatal complications? Depending on the answer to the former questions on when a fetus becomes a person, when do we begin to protect its right to life? Does the father have equal rights to decide the fate of his offspring? Should the abortion laws be different for minors than for adults?

  THE PRINCIPLES

  We don’t pretend to have the answers to these difficult questions. We can identify some principles, however, to help guide our decisions in the best manner possible with our limited knowledge.

  The first principles to apply are individual rights and personal agency.

  (A note to religionists and conservatives: If you hold abortion as contrary to your religion, you should still do what you see your God doing: leaving people free to make their own choices and mistakes, all the while trying to educate and help them if it is a cause you feel passionate about.)

  The next principle to guide us is that Perspective Determines Action. A change in perspective will change what people choose to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. We can support adoption and effective sex education programs, as well as education campaigns to lovingly inform people about the facts of abortion and what other options are available. We should do all this with the following code to guide us: err on the side of freedom rather than tyranny.

  (A note to liberals and Progressives: Protect women’s rights all you like, but leave public funding of abortions off the table. It is a contradiction to crusade for rights on one hand while violating the property rights of citizens (through taxation) as well as their liberty of conscience (through how those taxes are used) on the other. This is an initiation of force just as immoral as those who attempt to use force to stop these women. The principle to reference in this case is that Force Destroys Freedom and Prosperity.)

  A REASONABLE SOLUTION

  There are those (including us) who would argue that rights “are moral principles arising from the need for freedom to act on one’s judgment in a social context,” and they would be correct.

  [439] Some would further argue that rights apply only to individuals, that those individuals must exist in a social context. This is also correct. Then they say that because babies are encased in another individual, they do not yet exist in a social context. They do not base their argument on the ability of the child to survive outside the womb, or upon the child being distinct from the mother with its own DNA, merely upon being no longer encased inside another.[440] This conclusion is not necessarily correct.

  The crux of this argument is that babies in utero do not exist in a “social context.” Yet what does social mean? Social refers to interaction between human beings. Is not a doctor taking the life of a child, even in utero, still an interaction between two humans? Is not this an imposition of the most extreme force? Is a fully developed viable baby not an individual human simply because it of its spatial location? Partial-birth abortions require a child to be halfway delivered when a doctor kills them. Would it be half an individual with half rights if it was partially delivered? Is a baby not an individual since its head is still inches inside a birth canal? How would the distinction of “individual” be made if, like kangaroos, human babies could be replaced into a pouch? Would not that consist of being “encased” in another person? How does being encased in another cause individuality to cease to exist?

  What is the difference between a baby killed in the womb vs. out of the womb? What about partially out of the womb? Out of the womb for less than ten minutes? Is killing a nine-month-old baby in the womb different from killing one delivered prematurely? An academic journal edited by Professor Julian Savulescu, then director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, published a paper which argued that parents should be allowed to kill their children up to age two for reasons such as not being able to afford them, or simply not wanting them. Justification for this was based on the reasoning that a child is not yet a person with a moral right to life, possessing goals, dreams, etc. This revolting justification of murder is innocuously termed “after-birth abortion.”

  [441]

  The distinction of in and ex utero is certainly a major event, but should it be the determiner between being an individual human and a lump of tissue? Is merely passing through the birth canal a significant enough event to make a meaningful distinction between avoiding an unwanted encumbrance and murder? Should the determining factor in such an important matter, not be the location of the pre-human, but the method that the human receives its air and nourishment—whether lungs and stomach or umbilical cord?

  Perhaps, until mankind achieves further knowledge, the most reasonable answer to this issue would be to consider the beginning of life by the same criteria as the ending of life—with a detectable heartbeat. As has been said, this is a complex issue; however, making this distinction is perhaps the most rational middle ground for the purpose of having objective law which respects the rights of all involved. Abortion could be legal up to the point of the heartbeat, and for a time longer in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is in danger.

  While a legal definition of life may be more narrow and restrictive for the purpose of determining moral actions of individuals, it is disingenuous and an outright evasion to argue that a growing human being is not “life.” It does not matter how one seeks to evade the issue, whether it be by employing cold, distancing medical terms such as “fetal tissue,” or otherwise to blank-out from the fact that the discussion of abortion deals with human life.

  Does a woman have a right to choose what to do with her body? Certainly, but with rights come stewardship and respons
ibility for one’s actions. When a woman risks pregnancy by her willful choices, her decision potentially makes her responsible for the life of another. A pregnant woman’s actions have direct consequences over the life or death of a helpless human under her stewardship.

  Contraceptives may fail, and one who has taken proper precautions to avoid pregnancy may still become pregnant. In such cases when a woman has acted responsibly and still becomes pregnant, surely she should have the right to do what she wants with her body, up until that action would infringe on the life of another. When a woman negligently becomes pregnant and passes to the point of being responsible for the life of another, should she be able to escape the responsibility from her poor choices by killing? Is this a morally justifiable way to evade the consequences of one’s carelessness? The momentous choice to bear the responsibility for human life is not made at birth but before conception. Whatever your views on this issue, the destruction of human life should never be approached callously.

  Review

  Q1: How does the government violate everyone’s rights by being in the marriage business?

  Q2: What principles should guide us concerning abortion?

  Q3: Using what you’ve learned in this book, what are principled solutions to other major issues such as the war on drugs, gambling, etc?