I've read this, and I just listened to the podcast episode where you talk about leaving libertarianism. I'm on a similar journey myself.
You talk above about rights being "always identified in the context of something, and are balanced against other restraints that prevent the society from disintegrating into chaos" and in the podcast I believe it was mentioned that the sovereign or whomever has power is to wield it essentially for the "greater good." Application question: how would you respond to the various covid mandate situations from a few years ago within this frame? Its easy to construct a logical argument based on individual rights, but once you invoke the "greater good" and societal restraints, I'm not sure how you could say the mandates were a violation? Since, in our current context where we don't have power, and society was mostly on-board with the mandates, does that mean they weren't rights violations? Or maybe thinking of it in terms of rights is a bad framing of the issue. Is it just a moral evil? Though I wonder how it can be cast as immoral without appealing to bodily autonomy, which rests upon a rights-based argument.
Excellent essay and well articulated. My path away from libertarianism went down a similar path.
I've read this, and I just listened to the podcast episode where you talk about leaving libertarianism. I'm on a similar journey myself.
You talk above about rights being "always identified in the context of something, and are balanced against other restraints that prevent the society from disintegrating into chaos" and in the podcast I believe it was mentioned that the sovereign or whomever has power is to wield it essentially for the "greater good." Application question: how would you respond to the various covid mandate situations from a few years ago within this frame? Its easy to construct a logical argument based on individual rights, but once you invoke the "greater good" and societal restraints, I'm not sure how you could say the mandates were a violation? Since, in our current context where we don't have power, and society was mostly on-board with the mandates, does that mean they weren't rights violations? Or maybe thinking of it in terms of rights is a bad framing of the issue. Is it just a moral evil? Though I wonder how it can be cast as immoral without appealing to bodily autonomy, which rests upon a rights-based argument.
With enough time and reflection, one always recovers from an -ism!
Good essay. Any thoughts on Karl Ludwig von Haller and patrimonialism?
Thank you for sharing this! Very interesting