Rothbard on Liberty and Free Will
Many egalitarians and socialists argue that liberty is only of value to those who enjoy the privilege of having free will. They argue that many vulnerable people lack free will and that the state should, therefore, out of compassion for those trapped in unfortunate circumstances for no fault of their own, intervene with support, even when such interventions undermine individual liberty. These arguments reflect a misunderstanding of free will.
In drawing upon the natural law as the foundation for his ethics of liberty, Rothbard highlights the philosophical links between human nature, human reason, and free will. Natural law, as Rothbard depicts it, is based on “the ability of man’s reason to understand and arrive at the laws, physical and ethical, of the natural order.” This ability to reason is inherent in being human, a point on which Rothbard quotes Frederick Copleston:
He [Aquinas] shared with Aristotle the view that it is the possession of reason which distinguished man from animals [and which] enables him to act deliberately in view of the consciously apprehended end and raises him above the level of purely instinctive behavior.
Rothbard argues that both reason and free will are essential in choosing which ends to pursue: man “possesses reason to discover such ends and the free will to choose.” Thus, he views both reason and free will as essential components of human nature. Both reason and free will are universal characteristics of all human beings. It is, therefore, mistaken to suppose that vulnerable people are not responsible for their actions, for example, when they commit crimes, on grounds that they do not have the free will to decide to desist from crime and are “forced” into crime by their poverty or other disadvantages. Rothbard explains that free will
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