# Freedom, Anarchy, and the Law By Richard Taylor **URL:** **By** John Hospers **Published:** January 1, 1974 --- “Most of them do not understand the free market and they have no respect for it or patience with it.” Libertarians have often said, and by and large it seems to be true, that professors of philosophy in the universities of both the United States and the rest of the "civilized" world—not to mention professors of sociology, economics and political science—are either extreme statists or moderate statists. Most of them do not understand the free market and they have no respect for it or patience with it. Professor Richard Taylor of the University of Rochester, New York, is a conspicuous exception to this generalization. He is extremely skeptical of the institution of the State. "Government," he says, "is the coercion through threat and force of the many by the few...." Even if the rulers or rules can be shown to be good, wise and far-seeing, this gives them no claim to rule others: "The declaration, 'I am a wise and good man,' might be followed by 'therefore I am entitled to command you and you are obliged to obey,' but the relationship of the two declarations is one of mere sequence. The word 'therefore,' irrelevantly appearing between them, is purely decorative and expresses no rational connection at all." Professor Taylor does believe there should be a government and that it should have certain limited powers. One of his main tasks is to state and defend a view of what those powers should be. He quotes John Stuart Mill's famous passage in _On Liberty_, that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others" and says that Mill provides no criterion at all, since he provides no clear definition of what constitutes "harm." Professor Taylor then attempts to generate a criterion of his own. To solve the problem, Taylor draws a distinction between "natural injury" and "conventional injury." A natural injury is anything that evokes deep resentment on the part of the injured party, "by virtue of his very nature as a man." A conventional injury is something one resents not by virtue of his humanity, but because of what he has learned or how he has been conditioned by his culture. There are, says Taylor, only three ways in which men may "naturally" injure each other: (1) assault, (2) theft and (3) fraud. No man needs to be taught "that an assault upon himself is something bad, nor does anyone suppose that the evil of such an action is a mere consequence of some edict, declaration or law." Much could be said about his rationale for arriving at these categories: some libertarians would say that he should, like Rand, have developed a doctrine of natural rights from which these conclusions follow and others that he should have gone in for more Aquinas and the tradition of natural law (which he does to some extent). At any rate, it turns out that the very categories of acts that should be called crime according to Taylor—as well as those that should not—are virtually identical with those that libertarians themselves have set forth. Dearest of all to the hearts of libertarians will be Taylor's remarks on "victimless crimes": "What one does with his body and mind, whether he uses drugs, intoxicants, poisons, stimulants, or what not, whether he engages in activities dangerous to his own well-being, whether he takes certain precautions for his own safety, such as wearing certain safety devices on the public highways or locking up his belongings, are beyond the concern of any legislator.... The lawmaker may ask only: Is it injurious to anyone but the agent?.... The morality of citizens, whether what they are doing is right or wrong, or whether they even know the difference between right or wrong, is of no more concern to him than to any ignorant and idle meddler." What, then, according to Taylor, is the justification for the existence of the state and for obedience to its laws? "The ultimate justification of the state, if it has any, can only be its expansion and enhancement of freedom"—the freedom of every citizen; not even his happiness—this the state cannot bring about, and should not even if it could, this being left to the voluntary activities of individuals—but his freedom. Libertarians of the limited-government persuasion will of course agree with him on this, on the need for the state to arbitrate disputes, the anarchist libertarians will say that the same purpose (rational arbitration of disputes) can be effectively provided for by a system of private competing courts. Since this dispute has been aired pro and con ad nauseam by numerous libertarians, I shall say nothing more about it at this point. Taylor never refers to any recent anarchist literature, so it is not clear what he would think if he had been acquainted with the concept of arbitration agencies (private courts), defense agencies and so on. Apparently the possibility of all this has not occurred to him. There are many other issues discussed in the book, such as the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, rules and laws, comment on which would be more appropriate in a journal on ethics. But his views on these matters too are heady wine, forthrightly and elegantly presented. All in all, Taylor's book is a most exciting one, by a man who has come to largely (but not entirely) libertarian conclusions quite on his own, without reference to the historical or contemporary books and articles written by libertarians. His book is a refreshing breeze in the mass of "contributions" to the literature of contemporary political philosophy. _Reviewed by John Hospers / Political Philosophy (144 Pages) / BFL Price $2.95_