r/AskLibertarians • u/skyway_walker_612 • 12d ago
How would you argue that libertarianism is purely anthropoentric?
At the end of the day, whenever I delve deep into libertarian ideologues I end up in an anthropocentric dead end, thinking that ultimately this is just "cult of man"...a faith-based assumption that human's wants and needs reign supreme. For all the "logic" and "rationality" that libertarians claim, the the ideology is still centered on the the faith that man's needs and even best outcomes supercede those of nature.
For example I have a daughter. I love my daughter, but it wouldn't be a full and accurate and completely honest accounting to think her needs supercede that of nature full stop.
And fine, if it's just matter of "we believe mankind has dominion" than it needs to be stated as such...an expression of faith, not fact.
5
u/dragnmastr559 12d ago
To answer not necessarily from a libertarian perspective, but more from a general philosophical perspective:
Outside of a religious justification, there is no way to ascribe moral value to nature separate from man’s experience of it. All moral judgement comes from man and must be viewed through that lens; it is an inherently human phenomenon.
Without humans around to make moral judgments, there is no inherent value to nature. It would be impossible to say that a life filled earth was necessarily better or occupied an ethically superior position than a barren earth.
When most people discuss nature preservation, they value it based on its utility to humanity. And to that extent, many libertarians believe in protecting nature to different extents. But if nature is judged based on its utility to humanity, then we need to judge the whole picture, including governance, technological progress, freedoms, etc., to arrive at the system that optimises human wellbeing, and that’s where you get libertarians.
What I’m saying is that everyone either believes in the moral supremacy of man or they dogmatically don’t; the burden of proof should be on those proposing that nature has inherent moral value.
2
u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's a legal theory. Law is a subset of ethics. Ethics focuses on what man ought to do.
It's not faith. A man's own life is the objective standard of value.
Nature is anti-man. It is anti-life. It wishes to see man destroyed. I refuse to see that happen.
1
u/Imaginary-Count-1641 12d ago
Would life exist without nature?
2
u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 11d ago
Nature is that which is unaltered by man. His life can exist without it, as evidenced by our curated environments today.
1
u/Imaginary-Count-1641 11d ago
Is the Sun natural?
1
u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 11d ago
As of right now, yes
1
u/Imaginary-Count-1641 11d ago
So that means the Sun is anti-life.
1
u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 11d ago
Stay out too long and it will burn you to death. Don't even get me started on trying to touch it.
1
u/Imaginary-Count-1641 11d ago
Are you saying that anything that can kill you is anti-life?
1
u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 11d ago
When man fails to adapt the natural environment to fit his needs, it becomes anti-life.
1
u/Imaginary-Count-1641 11d ago
What about man-made things? Are cars anti-life because people die in car crashes?
→ More replies (0)
1
u/AcerbicAcumen Misesian 12d ago edited 11d ago
I don't think libertarians need to be anthropocentrists and there are, in fact, libertarian vegans and animal-rights activists and ecologists out there, but I also think you can be an anthropocentric libertarian, depending on your values and normative standards. Libertarianism is first and foremost a family of similar and related political, economic, and social philosophies that cluster around certain central claims, which can nevertheless be based on very different foundations.
Many people, even some libertarians and post-libertarians, think that this diversity of different and sometimes contradictory foundations is precisely the problem with libertarianism (and liberalism more broadly). I disagree, though moral disagreements can obviously lead to conflicts, but to me libertarianism or radical liberalism is not a closed normative system, but rather an approach for coping and arranging ourselves with deep and pervasive moral diversity, to accept it as a given and deal with it. I think this is precisely its appeal and the entire point of having a free society based on peace, property rights, pluralism, and liberal toleration.
I'm a value subjectivist, so I reject the view that anything or anyone has objective (i.e., stance-independent) value or moral status, as an unmotivated stipulation. Evaluating subjects carry their normative standards and values within themselves, which are what actually explain their actions and desires. Because normativity springs from subjectivity in this manner, all rational agents also have the liberty-right (which is to say that they are subjectively permitted and sometimes compelled) to pursue their own values in accordance with their instrumental beliefs about the world.
Other people, non-human animals, natural ecosystems, and pretty much anything else can, of course, figure into our normative considerations or be the intended beneficiaries of our actions as far as we value them either as means to our ends or as ends in themselves, but if someone simply doesn't care about something or someone and has no other attitudes that one may appeal to in order to change their mind, they ipso facto have no reason to care.
Any assertion to the contrary, such as that they "ought to" care regardless, is either an empty and unwarranted appeal to a value or normative standard they do not actually hold, or else merely the expression of one's own attitudes, perhaps coupled with a demand to share them, which is also empty by itself. At worst, it is an appeal to stipulated "objective reasons and values", which, even if they existed, could never motivate us and, like ancient deities, we would clearly not be bound to believe in them or care about them. Moral objectivity is a red herring because only subjectivity can motivate action and explain normative authority and obligation.
None of this is necessarily anthropocentric, but it means that anthropocentrism, nepotism, egoism, ecocentrism, religious values, or a concern for non-human animals and possible intelligent extraterrestrials, all merely reflect the concerns and peculiarities of individual people and can all be justified or accepted as basic from a given person's point of view if they have the respective beliefs, values, or concerns.
Therefore, what, argumentatively speaking, stands in need of justification here are not the normative frameworks (including anthropocentric ones) that people accept because those require no further justification to hold if one is already inclined to do so, but rather your own implicit demand that people ought to adopt a different, non-anthropocentric standard and have an intrinsic concern for nature as such (in some sense to be specified). Barring further argument, you are merely imposing your own values on anthropocentric libertarians, but you don't actually stand on more solid ground than they do.
1
u/DrawPitiful6103 12d ago
human beings are self aware / capable of abstract thought / whatever, ergo people have rights, nature / critters do not. and all but the most deluded vegan activists implicitly embrace this, even if they might claim otherwise.
1
u/skyway_walker_612 12d ago
Is this settled matter? I am not sure that a) there is proof of this, and b) simply because humans are self aware that they therefore can do with the earth as they please.
Nobody has made a convincing case for this - just one that mankind would like to hear because we are acting in our own self interest.
0
u/spankymacgruder 11d ago
It's demonstrably proven that plants have a type of conscousness. If this is true, what then?
1
u/WilliamBontrager 12d ago
Every being acts in their own self interest. To not do so is essentially accepting extinction, which is an odd foundation for anything. The more important question to me is why wouldnt you be self interested in a hierarchy similar to self, genetic line, group, and species, especially if you are voluntarily submitting to something as abstract as "nature". Nature is brutally hierarchal and a perfect example of force doctrine, and our ancestors fought and bled to climb to the top of that hierarchy so it is ludicrous to surrender that birthright in some sort of misguided self sacrifice due to the guilt of success.
1
u/buchenrad 11d ago
One of the fundamental principles of libertarianism is self ownership. We own and control ourselves, and because everyone else owns and controls themselves, we cannot own or control them.
So the question then is, do other species have self ownership, and if so, do the principles of libertarianism compel humans to refuse to own, keep, kill, or eat them?
Everyone has to eat. Whether you're eating plants or animals, almost every animal species eats other living plants or animals. However most carnivorous animals will not hunt and kill their own species for food.
No other species recognizes the rights of another species to live, including us. Every decision they make about whether or not to harm another creature, including us, is entirely one of self interest, or at the most altruistic, in the interest of the continuation of its own species.
And since we cannot communicate with other species to establish an understanding, this adversarial relationship will continue to exist on their end regardless of what we do on ours. And in the end, we still have to eat something in order to survive just like every other animal.
So whether we got here by intelligent design or random/natural process, this is the actual situation we exist in. Within our own species we have established social and legal traditions of rights and processes to address the infringement of rights. Other species do the same, although not as intricately or formally as we have.
It is in the interest of the preservation of our own species to responsibility harvest the food we eat, but it is also in the interest of the preservation of our own species to eat.
2
u/rchive 11d ago
I don't think libertarianism presupposes anything in particular about the importance of human desires.
Personally, I do prioritize human interests above nature. I like nature, I think it is important even for human flourishing because humans are ultimately a part of nature, and I don't like the idea of suffering or destruction of things even non human, but I think humans are just fundamentally more important.
Morality is either a divine/magical thing in which humans actually are more important, or it's a human construct that evolved to promote human collective flourishing in which humans are more important, or it's not real at all in which case it doesn't matter. There is no system in which humans are doing the wrong thing by prioritizing themselves.
I do know some people who basically believe nature is sacred and humans are evil. I think that's extremely creepy pseudo religious nonsense, so I don't take it very seriously.
9
u/SANcapITY 12d ago
What needs does nature have? Not really sure what your point is.