As George Smith argues in his recent book on some of the intellectual currents in the history of classical liberalism, a major reason for classical liberalisms decline was the turn from some form of natural rights defense of freedom to a utilitarian one. While utilitarian defenses of freedom can be insightful and sometimes profound (see, Henry Hazlitt, The Foundations of Morality), the very fact that utilitarianism tends to focus on the efficacy of means (at the margin, usually), freedom gets evaluated as one of the variables relevant to human welfare, well-being, betterment, rather than as an end in itself. This has continued to open a dangerous wedge that advocates of socialism, social justice, and interventionism have continuously used to eat away at the liberty that classical liberalism first defended and helped bring into realization to a great extent over many aspects of human life. - Richard Ebeling
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 20:21:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015