Imagine that the pure and original human condition is freedom from all political constraint; and when governments intervene, they introduce arbitrary and illegitimate power. Then the market is Eden and the government is original sin. In that case, anyone who deliberately increases the scope of government must either be a purposeful or a deluded friend of sin. Regardless of what the Congressional Budget Office or the American Medical Association may say about the new health care act, it can only be a snake in the garden. The difference between literally “taking over one sixth of the economy” by nationalizing health care and merely adding some new insurance regulations and subsidies (as Congress did this week) is immaterial, because sin is sin. On this view, the only important political distinction is between those who would protect freedom from the state and those who would use government for their ends. Communists, fascists, liberals, and moderate conservatives–despite what I observe as profound differences–run together.

I am certainly not the first to note a similarity between this specific kind of libertarianism and religious thought. In 1922, Charles A. Beard argued:

About the middle of the nineteenth century, thinkers [in the field of Political Economy] were mainly concerned with formulating a mill owner’s philosophy of society; and mill owners resented every form of state interference with their ‘natural rights.’ … The state was regarded as a badge of original sin, not to be mentioned in economic circles. Of course, it was absurd for men to write of the production and distribution of wealth apart from the state which defines, upholds, taxes, and regulates property, the very basis of economic operations; but absurdity does not stay the hand of the apologist.

Beard wanted to rebut the idea that markets were primeval and natural by demonstrating that states originally created modern markets by seizing territory, chartering corporations, coining money, literally building physical exchanges, and so forth. But Beard’s language suggests another point. The doctrine of laissez-faire echoes Christian principles, but almost precisely in reverse. (And to teach an inverted Christian doctrine would be blasphemous.) The conventional Christian view is that property was absent in Eden and among Jesus’ apostles. Property entered because of sin; anointed or otherwise legitimate governments rightly restrain it with law.

I think Tom Paine represents an intermediary stage between the original doctrine (property is sin) and its laissez-faire inversion (property is pristine). In Common Sense, he writes:

[Natural] Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. This first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.

This is not yet philosophical libertarianism, because Paine thinks that government, like dress, is a good idea under the circumstances. But it introduces the association of government with original sin.

Glenn Beck waded into the same territory when he denounced churches that embrace “social justice.” His sense of sin was religious, I think, although his doctrine was the precise reverse of what all Christian denominations still officially hold. Jim Wallis has a nice rebuttal in the Huffington Post. If the official and traditional religious position still influences believers, then Beck bit off more than he can chew.

I suspect that people make moral judgments based on a mix of principles, rules, virtues, moral exemplars, and stories. My own philosophical position is that these factors are on a single plane. Principles need not underlie stories, for example. There can be a web of influence or implication that connects all these different kinds of factors. It can be legitimate for a story to imply a principle, a principle to imply respect for an exemplar, the exemplar to suggest respect for a virtue, which implies a different principle. None is necessarily primary or foundational.

As an empirical matter, people differ (I assume) in how their moral thought is organized. If you envision each moral factor as a node, and each implication from one factor to another as a network tie, then we each have a moral network map in our mind. But for some, the map will look like an organizational chart, with a few very broad principles at the bottom, which imply narrower principles, which imply specific judgments. For others, a single story (like the Gospels, or one’s own traumatic experience) lies at the center, and everything else radiates out. Some may have a random-looking network map, with lots of nodes and connections but no order. And some–whether by chance or not–will have what’s called a “scale-free” network, in which 20% of the nodes are responsible for 80% of the ties. That kind of network is robust and coherent, but not ordered like a flow chart. The 20% of “power nodes” may be a mix of stories, exemplars, principles, and virtues.

I would further hypothesize that people of similar cultures have similar moral network maps.

How to find out? I wonder if you could give people an online survey that led with a fairly realistic but fictional moral situation.* It would be something close to lived experience, not a scenario like a trolley problem that is contrived to bring abstract principles to the surface.

Respondents could then be asked:

1. What principles (if any) influence you when you think about what you should do?

2. Whom would you imitate (if anyone) when you’re deciding what to do?

3. What virtues (if any) would you try to embody when you’re deciding what to do?

4. What stories (if any) come to mind when you’re deciding what to do?

All of a respondent’s answers could then be displayed on a screen, randomly scattered across the plane. The respondent could be given a drawing tool and asked to draw arrows (one- or two-directional) between factors that seem to influence or support other ones. Those data would generate a moral network map for the individual, and we would see how much the structure of people’s maps differ.

*It would be very challenging to write a scenario that didn’t bias responses toward one kind of moral factor. It would also be difficult to create a fictional scenario that had salience for different people. But the general idea would be to create a nuanced, complex, realistic situation demanding a moral response. For me personally, the kind of fictional story that would resonate would be something like this: “Your child attends a local public school. She’s doing well academically and learning some academic material in classes, although not as much as she could. The school is racially and culturally diverse, and she benefits from learning about people who are demographically different. White, middle-class students perform better on standardized tests within this school than their peers who are children of color. The principal is caring and concerned with equity but does not seem to have a vision. The teacher is not especially nice but does seem effective at raising all children’s test scores. Options for you include moving your kid to a different school, becoming more involved in the school’s governance, or advocating for a policy change. What do you feel you should do?”

At a meeting last week, we discussed whether gay marriage makes a good topic for discussion in a philosophy or civics course at the high school or college level. Some participants argued that there are no good secular, public reasons against gay marriage. Students (at any level) may have personal convictions against it, but they can only disclose those convictions (if they dare). They will not be able to make arguments relevant to fellow students who hold different convictions. All the neutral arguments favor gay marriage. And that makes it a poor choice for a discussion topic.

I’m not certain that’s correct, but I do think that gay marriage is nested in broader issues that make better discussion topics. IF we should live in a liberal, democratic state that is neutral about religion, AND IF that state should give special legal recognition and benefits to “marriage,” defined as a very specific contract between pairs of consenting adults, THEN that recognition and those benefits should be available to gay citizens as well as straight ones. That argument seems very straightforward to me and virtually impossible to refute on its own terms. But …

Should we live in a liberal, democratic state that is neutral about religion? That’s a good, complicated, heavily-discussed topic. It raises thorny cases. For example, Martin Luther King was a Christian minister and theologian who made brilliant, “faith-based” arguments against segregation. Those arguments influenced policymakers and voters in our liberal democracy. Was his influence appropriate? If so, why?

Second, should the state recognize and provide benefits for only certain kinds of contracts, defined as “marriages?” Today, in some states, gays may marry legally. But everyone who marries enters into a contract that has certain features. It is designed to be permanent, although there is an intentionally difficult escape hatch in the form of divorce. It combines in one package monogamous sexual intimacy, economic unity, parenting and adoption rights, cohabitation, tax benefits, inheritance, and other legal privileges. Clearly, these elements could be unpacked and offered a la carte.

In practice, marriages do differ. Some people who marry are never sexual partners nor plan to be. Some couples do not expect or value monogamy. Prenuptial agreements may override the principle of economic unity or common property. Yet it remains important that the state — and social custom — favors one model of marriage (even when gay marriage is permitted).

I think this second issue (standardized legal marriages versus a la carte contracts) is pretty interesting. If legal marriage became very flexible, it would be like forcing everyone to negotiate their own prenuptial agreements. I would personally hate that idea. It seems extremely stressful to have to invent one’s own model of marriage as a couple and then write it all down in legal terms. I would much rather buy into an existing legal and social norm. But this seems like a worthy topic of discussion.

I have a lot of respect for the pragmatic kind of libertarianism that says: Market solutions might work better than government programs, and we should try them. For example, I think it’s right to experiment with voucher systems as alternatives to government-run schools. This experiment will either work or not (under various circumstances), but it’s worth trying.

A voucher system would not, however, bring about true philosophical libertarianism. The government would still collect mandatory taxes to fund education, and would still make certain educational experiences mandatory for every child. In fact, voucher systems are standard in some of the Western European countries that we call “socialist.”

True philosophical libertarianism says: Government taxation and regulation are affronts to personal liberty. My life is mine, and no one, including a democratic state, may take goods from me or direct my actions without restricting my freedom. At most, minor restrictions on my liberty are acceptable for truly important reasons, but they are always regrettable.

That doctrine simply does not feel plausible to me, experientially. Imagine that all levels of government in the United States reduced their role to providing national defense and protecting us against crimes of violence and theft. Gone would be an interventionist foreign policy, criminalization of drugs and prostitution, and–more significantly–publicly funded schools, colleges, medical care, retirement benefits, and environmental protection. As a result, a family like mine could probably keep 95% of the money we now have to spend on taxes, paying only for a minimal national defense and some police and courts. We would have perhaps one third more disposable income,* although we would have to purchase schooling for our kids, a bigger retirement package, and more health insurance; and we would have to pay the private sector somehow for things like roads and airports.

I have my doubts that we would be better off in sheer economic terms. In any case, I am fairly sure that I would not have more freedom as a result of this change. And freedom (not economic efficiency or impact) is the core libertarian value.

I don’t think one third more discretionary income would make me more free because I know plenty of people who already have that much income and they don’t seem especially free. With an extra billion dollars, I could do qualitatively different things from what I can do now; but an amount under $100,000 would just mean more stuff. Meanwhile, when I consider the actual limits to my freedom, the main ones seem to fall into two categories. First, there is a lack of time to do what I want. I suppose not having to pay taxes would give me a bit more time because I could work fewer hours. But my work is a source of satisfaction to me (and is also somewhat competitive with others’ work). I would be very unlikely to cut my hours if the opportunity arose, nor would doing so feel like an increase in my freedom. The way to get more time is to stop wasting it.

Second, I feel limited by various mental habits: too much concern with material things, too much fear of disease and death, too much embroilment in trivialities. I hardly think that being refunded all my taxes would help with those problems, especially if I then had to shop for schools, retirement packages, and insurance. That sounds like a perfect snare.

I have been talking about me and my family. Whatever the impact on us of a libertarian utopia, it would be worse for people poorer than us. Unless you take a very dim view of the quality of government services such as Medicaid and public schools, you should assume that low-to-moderate income citizens get more from the state than they could afford on the market. They would have reason to worry that they could afford basic services at all, and such insecurity would decrease their freedom as well as their welfare.

Overall, economic libertarianism seems to me a materialistic doctrine. (Civil libertarianism, which I endorse, is a different matter.) You risk being called elitist for saying that we are unfree because we have too much stuff and care too much about it. But it happens to be true.

*I don’t know how much my family spends on total taxes (income, sales, property, local, state, federal, Social Security, etc), but the Statistical Almanac of the United States says that 12% of all personal income goes to taxes, and I am presuming that we pay three times the average rate because we have higher income and live in Massachusetts.