Can a Catholic be a Libertarian?

This is a question asked on FishEaters Forum. Below is just one post in what is now a three page thread. The entire thread is worth reading, but this is a good summary. The Libertarian is a newcomer to the forum, seeking to learn more about Traditional Catholicism. The person answering him is one who has studied theology and philosophy at the postgraduate level.

From FishEaters Forum

Welcome to FE.

I have found that often it is Libertarians who will fit best with the traditional Catholic view on things in a practical sphere, but ultimately, the philosophy that underlies Libertarianism is an effort to return to a pure form of that of Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau. Those men were virulently anti-Catholic and their philosophy (even if they do get some things correct or close). One cannot expect Catholic ideas (good fruit) to come from a rotten tree.

Many arguments could demonstrate this, but I think a perfect proof of this is Religious Liberty. If we take Libertarian principles and apply them to theology, the notion that the State should have no power to prohibit a false religion would fit nicely. Yet this is precisely the opposite of what the Church had always taught until Vatican II. It, thus, makes total sense when Pope Benedict XVI said that Vatican II was 1789 in the Church. It precisely was the introduction of anti-Catholic Enlightenment ideas into the Church.

So, on a practical level probably you will find that traditional Catholics and Libertarians agree on many practical things in political and social life, especially in the face of of present affairs where "Conservatives" and "Liberals" are like the Girondins and Montagnards in 1972. If you dig deeper, you will find that the philosophy underlying Libertarianism discords with Catholic principles.

A few things you say would demonstrate some hit of that.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: Libertarian law is based on property rights, and property owners can dictate what property is allowed on their property. Therefore a community of private property owners together can prohibit the sale and possession of  pornography, just like convenience stores can prohibit private guns.

The common good of society is served by it tending towards its proper end. The proper end of a civil society is to provide to men a safe, stable, productive environment so they can easily provide for their material needs, and as a result more easily pursue their supernatural goal through the true Faith. Thus the Catholic does not conflate State and Church, but says that each plays a role in providing the means to heaven. The State provides for the natural means, the Church for the supernatural means.

So society and the State has a vested interest in making law reflect both Natural Law and Divine Positive Law, and thus reflecting objective morality. Not everything immoral can or should be prohibited (because many good things would be accidentally prevented), but human law cannot merely be a reflection of the whims of the society.

In your example with a town prohibiting pornography, you seem to fail to see that it is a moral imperative to do so for the common good. The common good if objectively harmed if people commit sin or objectify sex or others. Thus unless there be a grave reason to tolerate the evil, the common good demands that the civil authority prohibit pornography and severely punish those who would not only possess it but spread it about. Practically how this happens (e.g. not punish possessors, but punish those who provide it), is a matter for a prudential decision, but the matter itself is based on Natural Law, God's rights, and the common good, not property rights of individuals.

If the matter is left up to a popular movement or agreement, then so will morality eventually become a matter of popular agreement.

Essentially by reducing everything to property rights, one reduces everything to a materialistic view of society.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: This is probably my biggest objection to Catholic social teaching. It is incongruous with correct social science.

I think you have it backward. The Church has been doing social science for 2,000 years, modern academic theorists have not.

Even so, your objection suggests that Catholic Social Principles prohibit lending at interest. They do not. Catholic moral law allows someone (if prudence is used) to lend and reap some additional benefit. The benefit has to be proportionate to the harm he undertakes in lending. A man out the $1,000 he gave to his neighbor as a loan has a right to recover the principle amount at the future value (so he does not effectively lose money), and also be compensated for the loss of use during the time he did not have it. In taking the risk that he is not repaid fully, he can also ask some reasonable amount of "insurance".

All told, that amounts to a small and reasonable amount of interest. It would not be the 25% of a credit card, nor would it be 0% (which as you note is properly a favor).

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: Wouldn't it be better to do nothing then? Besides I think you're still expecting too much from libertarianism. It only addresses the use of force in society. Most of the 'doing' in society that is good and Catholic does not require force!

Sure it does. Locks on doors are meant to keep out honest people, not criminals. Criminals can get in pretty easy, but if you remove an easy opportunity you keep decent people honest.

People even with good intentions are marked by Original Sin, and given the opportunity will be selfish and will do bad things. They have to be restrained from doing those by at least some degree of force, usually moral, but perhaps in more serious cases, physical.

If proof of this is needed, consult a parent or school teacher.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: 

Quote:I just don't agree with libertarian first principles.

I'm still not seeing where they conflict. The truth that God owns all of us, does not conflict, in my mind, with the interpersonal behavioral norm, in regards the use of force in society, that we in effect own ourselves. I think it actually reinforces it in two distinct ways.

1. If God owns all of us, what right does any one of us have to 'use' or 'abuse' the rights of another person who is also God's property? 
2. If God owns all of us, why should any of us be allowed to violate God's Commandments for the greater good? Are God's laws deficient? 

The interpersonal norm is going to be set by customary agreements, yes, but ultimately by Natural Law (which is based on the nature of man), a nature which was fixed and determined by God. It is also a wounded nature, so needs certain supports and this wound and its consequences and protections against it has to also inform interpersonal relations.

Still those norms cannot merely be conventual norms, because otherwise they are no objective. They have to be based on man's wounded Nature, and they also have to take into consideration that there is an end to be sought.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: Either the state is a 'necessary evil,' which must be tolerated for fear of the emergence of greater evils, or it is an unnecessary one. There is no possibility in truth that an entity which routinely and unrepentantly violates God's law is good by any stretch of the Christian imagination. 

You fail to make the distinction between the authority and possessor of the authority. It is a standard error among nominalists and materialists (of which Libertarianism is an outgrowth), because it fails to distinguish either Form and Matter or Potency and Action. Potency is the power to act. Action is the use of that potency.

Abuse, even routine and unrepentant, is a failure on the level of action. It is says nothing of the power.

The State and Church are in Catholic teaching, the only two perfect societies. Here "perfect" means that they possess all the means necessary to achieve their proper end. They have different, but related goals. They were created by God. Not any particular state, but civil authority at its root. This is proven by man's social nature and his lacking all of the means necessary to achieve his proper end without others.

If created by God, these things are good. The abuse of the authority by individuals possessing it is not, but also says nothing about whether they possess that power.

That said, it would be reasonable that the subjects in a state where such a consistently abusive authority existed would agree to oust that person who was for a long time or in a grave way not seeking the common good of society. It would have to happen in an ordered manner, with another authority designated to protect the common good and fight the abuser, thus it would not be rebellion or revolution, but as orderly a fight as possible.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: 

Quote:Sounds like chaos to me...

And the orgy of state orchestrated bloodshed in the 20th century wasn't? States are instruments of chaos, especially democratic ones. Democracy is revolution in permanence.

Faulty generalization.

The Catholic teaching on the State was given above. Remember we are not speaking of any particular state, but of the institution of a civil authority in itself. Certainly there are states which were tyrannies.

Modern democracy, which is not actually democracy at all, is, you are correct, an institution of the Revolution, but it is the same revolutionary principles on which Libertarianism is based : Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau.

(4 hours ago)A Libertarian Wrote: I'll shut about my libertarian views after this thread goes cold.  I'm mostly here to learn about traditional Catholicism. I just wanted to see if there were a) others like me here, b) better arguments for a union of libertarian politics and the Catholic faith, and c) any arguments which might make me question my views on liberty or force me to better understand my own positions.

No strict need to do so, this is a discussion forum, after all, but if some of us react strongly, please don't take personal offense to it. Hopefully in spirited discussion we can all learn something. A rugby game can look pretty ugly while its being played, but we can always grab a beer afterward. For your Libertarian sensibilities, it can be a local microbrew or even homebrew.