A 1987 article in Liberty Magazine, John C. Green & James L. Guth, “The Sociology of Libertarians,” Liberty (September-October, 1987), p. 5, inspired a poll in the July, 1988 issue, “The Liberty Poll: Who We Are and What We Think” (p. 37) which queried readers on various beliefs and six “moral problems.” That issue also included comments by Liberty‘s editors, “The Meaning of the Liberty Poll” (p. 49), including a comment by Rothbard, “What’s Wrong with the Liberty Poll; or, How I Became a Libertarian,” Liberty (July, 1998), p. 52.
This was followed up by a second poll in the February, 1999 issue, “The Liberty Poll” (p. 11), and ten years later in the June, 2008 issue with a third poll. See Mark Rand, “The Liberty Poll Results: Who We Are and What We Think,” Liberty (June, 2008), p. 29.
Ross Overbeek, “Moral Absolutes, Truth, and Liberty,” also writing in the June, 2008 issue, summarized the polls’ six ethical dilemmas:
The poll’s ethical dilemmas:
1. Suppose that you are a security guard for a large shopping mall. A terrorist has threatened to drop a bomb from a balcony into a crowd. He is moving toward the railing carrying an object that you believe to be a bomb. You have a gun. He has a hostage between himself and you (he knows that you have identified him). You have only a few seconds to react. What should you do?
a. Shoot at the terrorist only if you are certain you will miss the hostage.
b. Shoot at the terrorist if there’s a reasonable chance you’ll miss the hostage.
c. Shoot through the hostage if necessary.2. Suppose that a parent of a newborn baby places it in front of a picture window and sells tickets to anyone wishing to observe the child starve to death. He makes it clear that the child is free to leave at any time, but that anyone crossing his lawn will be viewed as trespassing.
a. Would you cross the lawn to help the starving infant?
b. Would helping the child violate the parent’s rights?3. Suppose that a parent decides to experiment with a radical new diet for his newborn child.
a. Should you prevent the parent from trying the diet if you have good evidence it would endanger the child’s health?
b. Should you prevent the parent from trying the diet if you have good evidence it would endanger the child’s life?4. Suppose that you are on a friend’s balcony on the 50th floor of a condominium complex. You trip and fall over the edge. You catch a flagpole on the next floor down. The owner opens his window and demands that you stop trespassing. Which of the following statements reflects your beliefs?
a. You should enter the condo against owner’s wishes.
b. You should hang on to the flagpole.
c. You should drop.5. Suppose that your car breaks down in a blizzard. You are trapped and may well freeze before help can get to you. You hike to the one house within hiking distance; the owner refuses to admit you. She has no phone. Which of the following statements reflects your beliefs?
a. You should force entrance to the cabin, which is not an act of aggression.
b. You should force entrance to the cabin, but it is act of aggression.
c. You should not force entrance.6. Suppose that your neighbor is constructing an atomic weapon. He assures you that it is for self-defense. You believe he intends to commit an act of extortion. Which statement most clearly reflects your beliefs?
a. You should prevent construction.
b. You should sell your house, and you are obligated to inform potential buyers.
c. You should sell your house, but you are not obligated to inform buyers.
d. This is unthinkable and therefore not happening.
See Mark Rand’s response to criticism in the letters section in the August, 2008 issue (p. 4):
A parent sells tickets to anyone wishing to observe his baby starve to death … the owner of a 49th floor apartment demands you let go of his flagpole and fall to your death … your neighbor has an atomic bomb in his basement.” Those situations “appear in the news frequently” in your neck of the woods? That’s not the news; you’re watching the soaps.
And using a jury to determine the correct action in those situations—as if any of those situations will ever arise—avoids the point, which is to ascertain whether libertarians really believe that the non-aggression axiom is absolute.
His first paragraph seems reminiscent of Ayn Rand’s take on the ethics of emergencies (Emergencies), which I more or less agree with, with some nuances. The second seems (perhaps) to indicate impatience with having to leave some decisions up to juries or the community instead of being able to hammer out, deductive style, answers to every conceivable problem from our armchairs, an approach I have criticized. 1
In any case, course many of these are questions that libertarians still debate today. For instance:
Shooting hostages (Q1)
This issues has come up in recent debates, e.g. Walter Block relies on it in various arguments. 2
Rothbard’s answer is also illuminating of his thought:
The arcane and esoteric problems in libertarian theory mainly miss the boat, and I say this as someone who cut his eyeteeth in the movement debating even more recondite puzzles.
Take for example the question of the shopping center guard. A criminal takes someone as a hostage, uses him or her as a shield, and brandishes a gun, threatening the rest of the public. Does a guard, employed by the shopping center, have the right to plug the hostage (assuming, of course, that he has no clear shot at the kidnapper?) The confusion comes from forgetting the rights of the innocent hostage. The question should be countered by another: namely, assume another bodyguard, hired by the hostage for defense. Assume, once again, that the hostage’s bodyguard has no clear shot at the kidnapper. The bodyguard looks around and sees the shopping center guard take aim and be about to shoot the hostage. The bodyguard, pledged above all to defend the person and property of the hostage, has only one justifiable course of action: to shoot the shopping center guard, who constitutes the most direct and immediate threat to the person and life of the hostage. By putting the case in terms of someone employed by the shopping center, the framers of the question have silently pushed the rights and defense of the hostage out of public view.
The moral of this story is not that all rights are relative, and that no firm position can be taken. The moral of this story is that everyone’s rights are absolute, 3 that pragmatism is inconsistent as well as pernicious, and that everyone is obligated to defend every innocent person’s rights: in short, that no aggression may ever be waged against an innocent victim regardless of excuse or alibi. And that the putative shopping center guard who shot and killed the hostage was a murderer, and should be treated accordingly. 4
Here Rothbard also seems to sense the problem with armchair questions that do not fully specify context, with his comment “By putting the case in terms of someone employed by the shopping center, the framers of the question have silently pushed the rights and defense of the hostage out of public view”. 5
Positive Parental Obligations (Q2, Q3)
Something I have addressed in various writing as well. 6
The Flagpole Dilemma (Q4)
I and others also discuss this one in various recent fora. 7 I won’t re-hash it here. But see Overbeek, “Moral Absolutes, Truth, and Liberty,” June, 2008 issue: “I believe· that these quite rare emergency situations do focus attention on details that challenge the universality of the nonaggression principle. To be blunt, arguing for dropping off flagpoles is silly. It boggles the mind that some libertarians do so while claiming to base their arguments on an egoistic framework.”
Breaking into a Cabin in the Woods (Q5)
Similar issued debated recently between e.g. Adam Haman, Dave Smith, and LiquidZulu. 8
Private Ownership of Nukes (Q6)
Something I address obliquely in The Universal Principles of Liberty, ¶8:
8. Devices of Mass Destruction (DMD) — Possessing, developing, or deploying a DMD constitutes a presumptive standing threat when it foreseeably endangers innocent parties through indiscriminate or catastrophic effects. This presumption may be rebutted only by proving, to the satisfaction of all affected parties or a neutral arbiter, that robust safeguards eliminate substantial risk of wrongful harm. Where unrebutted, proportionate action—preceded, where practicable, by notice, dialogue, and arbitration—to neutralise the danger is justified; exigent circumstances may warrant immediate intervention.
- The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The Case of Threats; On the Non Liquet in Libertarian Theory and Armchair Theorizing; Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases; On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic. [↩]
- Stephan Kinsella, “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre” (May 9, 2024), discussion of forestalling and evictionism; Walter E. Block, “Human shields, missiles, negative homesteading and libertarianism,” Ekonomia—Wroclaw Economic Review 25, no. 1 (2019): 9–22, p. 9. See also idem, “The human body shield,” J. Libertarian Stud. 22, no. 1 (2011): 625–30. Walter’s theory is also summarized on the Walter Block Wikipedia page); KOL443 | Abortion: A Radically Decentralist Approach (PFS 2024). It also comes up in his defense of Israel. See Walter E. Block & Alan G. Futerman, “Rejoinder to Hoppe on Israel vs. Hamas,” MEST Journal (2024) which is a response to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “An Open Letter to Walter E. Block,” LewRockwell.com (Jan. 31, 2024). See also David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya, “The Classical Liberal Case For Israel,” LewRockwell.com (Feb. 2, 2024; Mises.org version) and Walter’s response, Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block, “Rejoinder to Gordon and Njoya on Israel and Libertarianism,” MESTE Journal (Position Paper) (2024). [↩]
- But see my discussion of the concept of rights as “absolute” in Dominiak & Wysocki, “Libertarianism, Defense of Property, and Absolute Rights.” [↩]
- Rothbard, “What’s Wrong with the Liberty Poll; or, How I Became a Libertarian,” Liberty (July, 1998), p. 52, 55. [↩]
- See The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The Case of Threats; On the Non Liquet in Libertarian Theory and Armchair Theorizing; Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases; On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic. [↩]
- KOL443 | Abortion: A Radically Decentralist Approach (PFS 2024); Epstein on Roman Law; Libertarian Answer Man: Fine Print, The Doctrine of Unconscionability, Good Faith, Forced Heirship, Lesion Beyond Moiety; License to Breed; KOL474 | Where The Common Law Goes Wrong (PFS 2025); “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); Block, “Does Trespassing Require Human Action? Rejoinder to Kinsella and Armoutidis an Evictionism”. [↩]
- Núñez: “Flagpole Libertarianism: A Refutation of the Suicide Pact”; The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats; Ralph Raico, R.I.P.; Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases; On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic; Haman: David Friedman, LiquidZulu, and two errors in understanding the Non-Aggression Principle. [↩]
- Haman: David Friedman, LiquidZulu, and two errors in understanding the Non-Aggression Principle; Haman vs. Zulu: Martians, Stealing Candy Bars, Rights, Law, Morality; Núñez: “Flagpole Libertarianism: A Refutation of the Suicide Pact”; Haman: David Friedman, LiquidZulu, and two errors in understanding the Non-Aggression Principle. [↩]
