I don't think there is. But it's probably that difference that makes Wilkinson a limited-government liberal instead of a libertarian.

And that's where I part ways with the liberal crowd. To the extent some humans are not empathetic, I do not believe they should be required to keep others alive. I, on the other hand, would willingly pay to prevent old people and children from starving to death. Frankly, I do so every Sunday.

Incidentally, I also believe that allowing the choice validates (and in some ways encourages) my voluntary contribution.

I'm sure this issue is more sophisticated than i realize, but the whole discussion above seems to imply that libertarians agree with this Rawlsian notion that everyone is entitled to a certain minimum standard of living, but that libertarians disagree about the best means to that end. At the very least, the discussion is premised on the notion that an important justification for government is to assist the less fortunate. Call me ignorant, but I didn't know there was agreement (among libertarians) on these premises.

Quite a controversial moral principle, isn't it?

Liberals won't let old people and children starve to death?

To repeat what some of the other commentators have asked – what exactly are the aims of the liberal account of the state? And why do you find them preferable to a libertarian or classical liberal account?

But, second – the fundamental flaw with Mr. Wilkinson's schema is that people create their own facts in reliance on their world view. Liberals are absolutely convinced that in the absence of government intervention, large corporations would concentrate power among a very small number, exploiting nearly everyone, corrupting government, driving the poor deeper into the depths of poverty, etc. They believe that without safety regulations workers would be maimed and killed in enormous number.

Conservatives are certain that eliminating prayer in schools and government, and increased sexuality in mass entertainment has increased crime, broken homes, and other social ills.

Liberals will never believe that small government will help achieve their ends, including those ends shared with libertarians (eg, more general prosperity). I think that libertarians will in general not believe that larger government will help achieve their goals, including the goals they share with liberals (better general health outcomes, lower costs of health care, etc.).

Appeals to objective facts are unavailing, because there are no objective facts. All sides in these arguments will point to facts that are claimed to support their perspectives. Mr. Wilkinson will find in his genial discussions with liberals that when he points out how a smaller government can achieve liberal aims, the liberals will genially respond that he is mistaken, and that in actuality it will take more government intervention to enhance public welfare.

RTITS tells us that we have the right to ignore the state. But it can't be in virtue of something counting as a state that we have the right to ignore it. It must be something like this: I have the right to be fully autonomous. I don't have to do what (political) authorities insist I do.

I agree with this as a practical conclusion. We can (and probably should) ignore the state most of the time, in most situations. But this is because the state tells us to do the wrong things. It commands us to do things that, really, we shouldn't.

It tells us to pay certain taxes, and I cannot control where that tax money goes. I know, in advance, that a portion of my money will go to the provision of welfare (I'm okay with that, although I wish people would just ask me).

But I also know a non-insignificant chunk of my tax change will go to statues of politicians, buildings for politicians, cars for politicians, staff for politicians, and so on (I'm not okay with this at all, it is an inefficient waste. Although I am intrigued by the argument that what we are paying for is a really interesting soap opera between, say, the Capulets and Montagues, except they're called “Republicans” and “Democrats” and they're not all of them biologically related. Some of us might really enjoy the soap opera, and might be willing to pay a lot to have it).

And I also know that a very non-insignificant amount will go to prop up the warfare state, something that I definitely disapprove of. I might also be persuaded that it is very unlikely for us to have, in practice, a welfare state without a warfare state. I think the goodness of a welfare state is outweighed by the badness of a warfare state. Better not to have a welfare state at all if it is likely that we cannot cleave apart the welfare from the warfare (Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland are interesting examples of welfare but not warfare states, so there is some hope on this score).

But RTITS only accidentally overlaps with what I think is the truth. And the truth is that we ought to do what is best, regardless of what someone with the right hat, or the right outfit, or the right wig, or the right Santa Claus outfit (Canadian Supreme Court… ahem), or a badge, or a headdress, or a etc. tells us to do. I don't think we should ever do what an authority says *because* an authority says so, but only because it is the right thing to do for other reasons. Authority saying so is not reason-giving.

The case of doctors and other “authorities” of this sort is a different issue. I have reason to do what this kind of authority tells me to do only on the condition that I have reason to trust that they know something that I don't that is relevant to what is good for me, and reason to trust that they are telling me to do what is, in fact, good for me. No one should do things *because* a doctor tells them to and the doctor counts as an authority, but only because they have reason to trust the doctor's knowledge and intentions. An M.D. qualification is a good proxy for what really matters, but is not independently normative.

But that just means that RTITS is parasitic on other, more primitive, moral considerations. So we don't, in fact, have a “right to ignore the state” but, rather, a right to ignore authorities more generally. But this right to ignore them depends on them not having some relevant bit of knowledge about what is good (either for us or generally), and maybe a reason to doubt their good intentions. We don't have a right to ignore what we ought to do, and it's possible that the state occasionally issues commands that are independently the right thing to do.

This is why we have reason to do what our parents tell us to. It is not because they are our mom and dad, but, rather, because, in the ordinary case, they know more and they have our best interests at heart (we can rephrase this to capture bad parents like this: We should do what our moms and dads tell us to only if they have relevant knowledge and our best interests at heart).

Reducing RTITS to the more primitive moral convictions that actually underpin it leaves open a space for, again, the overlap between liberals and libertarians. The best liberals do not worship authority for its own sake. They want authorities to tell those of us who don't recognize what they ought to do, or are suffering from akrasia, or are merely being obstinate, to get these folks in line and do what they, themselves, have most reason to do.

Only if we fetishize RTITS and think it has independent normative standing will we think that liberals and libertarians are fundamentally at odds with one another. But we shouldn't fetishize RTITS. RTITS is not an independent, stand-alone moral conviction. It is parasitic on more primitive moral convictions that, in principle, liberals and libertarians can share.

As for the authority worshiping liberals, pay them no mind. They are not the kind of liberals that are worth paying much attention to.

It's fairly difficult for government to be big without some big programs.

I'm interested in the intersection of liberalism and value pluralism, so I found your comment quite interesting. But I think I need some clarification:

About RTITS (oh, how I love that acronym, but for none of the right reasons ):

RTITS is understood as a deontic requirement of some sort, yes? That is, its force is not grounded in — say — consequentialist considerations.*

If RTITS is a demand of justice (and I'm not saying all deontic requirements are demands of justice, but this one seems to be), then on what grounds can we be practically justified in ignoring RTITS in certain circumstances? In other words, how does the minarchist get away with compromising on justice?

I suppose I'm confused because I don't see rights as implying the kind of telos that would allow us to hold them as an ethical ideal that we could get closer or further away from.

To say that X has a right of this kind is to say that we all have a duty not to treat him in certain ways, even if doing so would bring about otherwise valuable outcomes. I don't think we can — compatible with this understanding of rights — violate someone's rights in order to produce better consequences.

So is the minarchist position morally consistent? I can see it as a stepping stone to anarchism. But once one has accepted that rights can be violated out of practical necessity, what's the stopping point? Because those on the left might gladly sign on to the full blown set of libertarian constraints, if they could maintain that those rights are subject to violation if the consequences are worth it.

Suppose we could arrange the world so that violating that one person's rights would prevent all other rights violations from occurring. Call this the super-duper ultra minimal state: its only role is to violate that one person's rights. It does nothing else. Not arranging the world in this way will lead to more rights violations occurring than would under this state.

So here's the question: which situation is closer to the RTITS ideal? The super duper ultra minimal state, where RTITS is violated less often? Or the anarchist situation, in which we know rights will be violated (not by us, but by others)? Which situation should the person who holds RTITS as an ideal try to bring about?

Sorry, not trying to pick nits. Your comments just struck on a few issues I've given some thought to lately.

* Some value-pluralists seem to think deontic constraints are just another kind of value, although I've never understood why. It seems like one could believe in a plurality of intrinsic, potentially conflicting values (happiness, wisdom, etc) and still think there are deontic requirements that place constraints on the manner in which we can pursue those values.

BTW, I don't think there is necessarly tension between these values even though they may push in different directions in different circumstances. That just means their proponents need a to develop a more nuanced theory to describe how you resolve the conflicts. (But the resolution may not be to the liking of the libertarian!)

I should also point out that those of us reading this blog probably have similar competing values at some level. For example, I'm all for utilitarian justifications for limited government and defining rights and regulatory schema, but my definition of the good goes beyond utilitarianism in that I believe you have to pay a fair bit of respect to individual autonomy and concepts that flow from self-ownership even though these may push in directions that don't maximize aggregate utility.

Of course committing totally to a full realization of RTITS entails anarchism; but you can believe in the desirability of RTITS as an ethical ideal and still think some amount of a state is a practical necessity. This is what you're missing, I think, in your account of where minarchism comes from and how it relates to other libertarian and liberal strands. You point out rightly that “big-government libertarianism” might be minarchist non-ideal theory but you ignore the extent to which minarchism may be (in my experience is) anarchist non-ideal theory.

Anyway, I think one of the things minarchists and anarchists share is a broad conviction that RTITS is the foremost moral and social ideal, or at least one of the foremost such ideals, and is certainly more important than, say, maximizing economic growth or providing a safety net. Do you reject this conviction outright? Do you think that RTITS has any moral value at all?