[ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Sun Sep 2 14:35:30 UTC 2012


On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Dan Ust <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366
>
> Comments?

This paper reminds me of Douglas Adams reference to the "Maximegalon
Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly
Obvious"...

Overall, I would have to say the paper reflects the Libertarian view
(or at least my views) fairly and accurately.

"Libertarians appear to have a coherent moral philosophy, which
includes a general opposition to forcing any particular moral code
upon others."

Spot on.

I feel like I do have a good deal of empathy, but perhaps other people
have even more. Here, perhaps, I am out of the Libertarian mainstream.
I would be very curious where I personally fall on this empathy scale,
and would like to know if anyone knows where I can self test my
empathy level such as is worked out in this paper, just out of
curiousness. I would be astonished if many people had more empathy
than I do, but I like being astonished from time to time.

I like the three predictions...
1.    Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently
than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral
concerns. This expectation is based on the explicit writings of
libertarian authors (e.g. the Libertarian party website at lp.org,
with the title “The Party of Principle: Minimum Government, Maximum
Freedom”).
2.    Libertarians will rely upon emotion less – and reason more –
than will either liberals or conservatives. This expectation is based
upon previous research on the affective origins of moral judgment [8],
as well as libertarians' own self-characterizations. For example, one
of the main libertarian magazines is called, simply, Reason.
3.    Libertarians will be more individualistic and less collectivist
compared to both liberals and conservatives. This expectation is based
upon previous research concerning the social function of moral
judgment [17], [29], [33]. Libertarians often refer to the “right to
be left alone” [38], and show strong reactance toward social or legal
pressures to join groups or assume obligations toward others that are
not freely chosen [39].

And it seems that the predictions held up.

I do disagree with one aspect, at least as it applies to me. I am a
generous and giving person. What I value is having the liberty to be
generous and giving as an individual, and not having the state be
generous and giving with MY money. So when they say libertarians in
general are not as generous and giving, I think I would have to
disagree with that.

I skipped some of the more technical details in the paper... pretty long.

-Kelly




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