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“George Carey’s 1984 collection Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian Debate still speaks to our moment. Re-reading those essays now impresses on the reader the overlap between the libertarian and conservative positions.” - L&L

Discussion

Fri, 08/18/23

Fascinating essay for understanding our current conservative vs. libertarian landscape. Here’s a bit more…

Some conservatives have indeed become too comfortable with embracing the coercive power of the state with the intent of shaping citizens to a particular notion of what is good. To this tendency, I think, libertarian skepticism seems well placed. One can be, like Socrates, an epistemological skeptic without being a metaphysical one. To the degree that libertarians are metaphysical skeptics, their thinking will be of little value to conservatives—the charge of relativism being consistently leveled by conservatives in the Carey collection. Nor will conservatives get anywhere by aping the Progressive obsession with power, as Salter indicates.

The ‘Cary collection’ he refers to is George Carey’s 1984 collection Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian Debate (Amazon affiliate link)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.