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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) Liberty and Virtue - Literature of Liberty, Autumn 1980, vol. 3, No. 3
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Liberty and Virtue - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, Autumn 1980, vol. 3, No. 3 [1980]Edition used:Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.
Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982
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Liberty and Virtue
“Liberty, Virtue, and Self-Development: A Eudaimonistic Perspective.” Paper delivered at the Liberty Fund-Reason Foundation sponsored Symposium on Virtue and Political Liberty; Santa Barbara, California, April 24–27, 1980.  By founding political philosophy on a “rights-primitive” basis (where rights are axiomatic), rather than on a “responsibilities-primitive” basis, many modern political philosophers have severed the connection between liberty and virtue. Basically, there are two fallacies at the root of the “rights primitive” approach. One fallacy is the notion that people ought to be given things throughout their lifetime, whether or not they have earned or deserved them through the cultivation of their own personal virtue. This is a fallacy because it assumes that desert doesn't have to be earned once a person has left the dependent stage of childhood. The second fallacy is the notion that all the desirable benefits of life can be conferred by other people. This fallaciously assumes that a person's needs are basically “economic” in nature, and continue to be so, even after a person has left the economically dependent stage of adolescence. A eudaimonistic theory avoids these fallacies by reconnecting moral and political philosophy via a more classical notion of the virtues. The virtue of generosity, for example, can be considered an indispensable precondition for moral maturity. And, the development of this virtue presupposes that an individual be allowed to benefit others who have earned the right to appreciate what he offers. There is no injustice, then, in allowing a Stravinsky to develop his musical talents in a way that only a few others might appreciate. Nor is there injustice in demanding that a Stravinsky be given the use of an orchestra when he has earned the right to express his talents in this way. Only by tying political desert to a moral merit that we earn by our own efforts, can moral and political philosophy be properly reunited. |
