Liberty vs. Virtue: The False Dilemma Fallacy

Posted on April 30, 2024 by The Political Hat

     The Post-Conservative Right shares much of it’s worldview with the older Hard Left. Not in the eschaton they want to immanentize, but that we must more forcefully so immanentize. To this end, we see the false dilemma fallacy of freedom vs. order/morality.   They see it as an either/or situation where too much freedom must come at the expense of the moral order. To that end they create some anarcho-capitalist or libertarian strawman and declare that it has failed to create a proper moral order consistent with traditional and veritable values, and thus must give way to more direct imposition by some ruling over others. It is “their base rhetorical trick” :

     Or to put it another way:

“It is one thing to point out a practical difficulty which limits the application of a principle and quite another to refute the principle itself” – James FitzJames Stephen

     Principles that were not first principles but grown organically is society with the generality derived therefrom.   Rules being of a general nature and universally applicable. Equal application of those rules according to the facts and individual circumstances.

     The limitation of government power and protection of freedom of legislative imposition, of executive arbitrariness and capriciousness, and of judicial restrain to not only the Constitution but more broadly to the common and statutory law.

     Inalienable rights that are independent of and antecedent to government itself. As the Bill of Rights preamble stated, those Articles of Amendment were “declaratory and restrictive”: Declaring what already existed before acknowledgement by the government and restrictions upon said government.

     The lack of economic freedom and the scourge of government without customary limits is why the Founding Fathers, who were familiar with what was being taken from them, declared independence!

     Freedom and virtue are at opposite ends and to limit government is to limit the ability of the government to rebalance that. Freedom is curtailable, then, in order to rebalance towards virtue, and because limiting government prevents that.

     Strawman of absolute libertarianism (the above noted flawed implementation of our existing system) thus must give way to an idealized form where flawed humans act without human flaws to achieve some ideal. Ah, then, but who then but those who have grabbed power decide what that ideal should look like?

     The free market is the free interaction of free individuals in the economic, and also social, sphere.   This is not to say the choice is between an anarcho-capitalist pipedream and a “justly ordered society” where freedom from the power of government is meted out as our rulers of others might deem us worthy.

     You can not have a justly ordered society without freedom, since if the state can control economic activity without any limiting principle, it can control any activity, and that control can and eventually will be used against you. These two things are not at odds with each other, but complimentary.

     Yes, of course there are laws and rules that constrain us. But the presence of laws of rules does not imply that there can not, nor should not, be firm constraints. The limits that have evolved both when it comes to economic freedom and personal freedom are indeed those limiting principles.

     Government is not society, nor should it be. We limit government to protect society from the government. As bad as non-governmental influence and power may be, that equality under the law under enduring principles protects us from them, and it is when we waiver from that protection that those negative influences gain the true power to harm usܻ—not when we uphold them.

     Eliminating the constraints on government in order to create “a justly ordered society full of human flourishing” is like trying to defeat Sauron by using the power of the One Ring for yourself.

     Without freedom, either economic or social, any ordered society will necessarily be unjust, and never truly flourish. It is when the government coordinates the economy for the purpose of creating “a justly ordered society full of human flourishing” that we get what is known as corporatism. And that is unequivocally Unamerican.

     We should, ought to, and must reclaim American society from the Woke Left, but empowering the tool—that is, the state—the Woke Left have deftly demonstrated to readily be able to use, is detrimental to our aim. Those who recourse to government simply acknowledge, whether they realize it or not, that they can not fight and win in the arena of society—truly they are the so-called “surrender caucus”. Just as the 1st Amendment protects religion and the faithful from the machinations of government, so we should more broadly protect society, as the benefits outweigh the negative.

     But some feel, nonetheless, so greatly that free markets and limited government are a shackle self-imposed by the virtuous playing “Marquess of Queensbury” rules while the Woke Left play without any rules, that freedom must be tossed aside in order to conquer and rule over the rest of America in order to secure “the traditional family, self-governance, and nation sovereignty”.

     This supposes that the Woke Left can only win by using freedom to protect themselves and that in the absence of freedom the anti-Woke forces shall conquer and perpetually rule via þe odle Sturm und Drang. That way they can impose the traditional family, or at least some superficial visage of it.

     Further, by doing so, they can create the new Soviet Man self-governed citizen, though people can not govern themselves without limited government since the more external governance, the less one can self-govern. It is true that unmoored from virtue or morality freedom become one’s fetters, as Edmund Burke noted, but that does not mean we should preemptively put on the fetters in order to create virtue or wisdom! Yes, we are all limited, by society and myriad individuals; but the less this limitation is by the government, the better.

     Free markets and limited government, by the way, are completely consistent with national sovereignty. Even tariffs, regulation, and even bans on foreign trade with countries like Communist China is consistent with free markets; economic warfare and such does not a free market make.   This does not mean that seeking free trade or harmonization of standards infringes national sovereignty, since it doesn’t.

     The free market and limited government are not just mere “principles” nor simply means to an end.   They are themselves core American values that allow us to achieve those desired ends. The free interaction of free individuals under a limited bust common rule of law is and end to themselves because it is that end those conditions are necessary to make “a justly ordered society full of human flourishing”. By making them mere means, you make them disposable. By making free markets and limited government mere means, you make them disposable if your ends, superficially at least, are not 100% met, or even if they are.

     This limitation and guarantee of freedom is not the anarcho-capitalist strawman some seek to present. Of course laws and rules exist.   But these laws and rules must be grounded in our history, tradition, and common law that is interminably intertwined with the limitations of limited government and a free market. Laws governing the economy ought to be of a general nature, equally applicable to all according to the facts and circumstances.   Similarly laws against harming other by force or fraud are limitations on people, but are themselves limited according to that enduring wisdom and tradition. It is true that some freedom misused may result in the overall reduction of freedom and laws exist for our own good and the good of others, but those are narrow and targeted rather than some broad and open fundamental transformation of society for the greater good or broad use of government towards some designated virtue or other. Even limits on behavior that degrades the fabric of society is limited so as to prevent government from torching the entire bolt of cloth!

     In a broad sense, laws are bad and excessive, as James FitzJames Stephen notes, “when the object aimed at is bad. … When the object aimed at is good, but the compulsion employed is not calculated to obtain it. …When the object aimed at is good and the compulsion employed is calculated to obtain it, but at too great an expense.”   It is that enduring wisdom and tradition that gave us those inalienable rights, economic freedom, and limitation of government, that helps define what calculations excessive expenses are and ought to be out of bounds. This, for example, is how we get the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

     Even when interference with morals meets the above, strict limits must be placed as prudence must not allow the irrational exuberance of moral purity pave a road to hell.   Stephen notes, as examples, four such ones: (1) Neither legislation nor pubic opinion ought to be meddlesome … (2) Both legislation and public opinion, but especially the latter, are apt to be most mischievous and cruelly unjust if they proceed upon imperfect evidence… (3) Legislation ought in all cases to be graduated to the existing level of morals in the time and country in which it is employed… (4) Legislation and public opinion ought in all cases whatsoever scrupulously to respect privacy.

     Society evolves. The free market wasn’t “created” for any end, noble or otherwise. It was a natural social evolution that resulted in wealth and prosperity, which is good for the American family. The mores, folkways, and broader beliefs Americans have in common also evolved and were not externally created values from which principles were invented, but part of the same social evolutionary process that gave use the free market and limited government.

     A “justly ordered society” is one ordered and anchored by dictate—by rulers of today who rule over others, but by subservience to the rule of law it self, and the “partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born” as Edmund Burke put it, or, as James FitzJames Stephen said, “[the] fixed principles and institutions of society express not merely the present opinions of the ruling part of the community, but the accumulated results of centuries experience”. Though society may evolve and change, it those accumulated principles and rules that best anchor society towards the civic virtue and freedom to seek moral good that gave us limited government and free markets, and it is the sweeping away of these in order to impose “a [purportedly] justly ordered society full of human flourishing” rather a top-down imposition by (un)intelligent designers.

     Those rules we must apply via government and the law should follow an important precept: That no single morality is correct, but there are many that are wrong. This narrowly allows for the achievement of a legitimate interest of the state (again, as with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act), while preventing overreach. It allows for laws conducive towards healthy families, self-governance, and a strong and sovereign nation while eschewing broad dictates. Similarly, it allows for laws being dissuasive towards family breakdown, over-governance by the state, and the weakening of the nation, without needing any outright prohibitions more than is absolutely necessary. In both cases, the laws must be generally applicable and enforced equally according to fact and circumstance.

     Beyond not committing a crime, we as a society, independent of government, should uphold basic values that aren’t even limited our American, broader Anglo-spheric, or even Western Civilizational ones. Stephen notes four basic precepts to that end: “(1) Thou shalt not commit crimes. (2) Thou shalt not inflict wrong. (3) Thou shalt perform thy contracts. (4) Thou and thine may keep whatever you can get.

     The government and the law can be supportive of virtue, healthy families, and a strong nation.   But it’s power to support can also be used to destroy. For this reason, government must be limited. It is up to us to change society for the better. To say that that is impossible and we need big government to do it for us is admit a systemic weakness that makes any claim of   being able to take over the government, use it deftly, and keep perpetual power in order to enforce it al… doubtful at best.

     To invoke Chesterton’s Gate (or Fence, if you will): Before unfreeing markets or unlimiting government, answer why these things were there to begin with.


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