Friedman on Intolerance: A Critique

[Libertarian Papers (2010)]

The essence of libertarianism is its nonaggression principle. In order to determine whether some act or concept or institution is compatible with this philosophy, one may use this as a sort of litmus test. If you initiate violence against someone, you must pay the penalty for so doing, and are presumptively acting outside of libertarian law.

However, in the view of some commentators who really should know better, intolerance, not creating an uninvited border crossing, is the be-all and end-all of libertarianism. In this view, tolerance, while it may not be sufficient, is certainly a necessary condition. If you are not tolerant, you cannot be a libertarian. States Milton Friedman (1991, p. 17, material in brackets inserted by present author. See also Friedman and Friedman, 1998, p. 161) in this regard,

I regard the basic human value that underlies my own [political] beliefs as tolerance, based on humility. I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I am right and he is wrong. Why do I regard tolerance as the foundation of my belief in freedom? How do we justify not initiating coercion? If I asked you what is the basic philosophy of a libertarian, I believe that most of you would say that a libertarian philosophy is based on the premise that you should not initiate force, that you may not initiate coercion. Why not? If we see someone doing something wrong, someone starting to sin [to use a theological term] let alone just make a simple mistake, how do we justify not initiating coercion? Are we not sinning if we don't stop him? How do I justify letting him sin? I believe that the answer is, can I be sure he's sinning? Can I be sure that I am right and he is wrong? That I know what sin is?

This relativistic, know-nothingism of Friedman's has been subjected to a withering rebuke by Kinsella (2009):

He was in favor of liberty and tolerance of differing views and behavior because we cannot know that the behavior we want to outlaw is really bad. In other words, the reason we should not censor dissenting ideas is not the standard libertarian idea that holding or speaking is not aggression, but because we can't be sure the ideas are wrong. This implies that if we could know for sure what is right and wrong, it might be okay to legislate morality, to outlaw immoral or "bad" actions.

And states Hoppe (1997, 23),

To maintain that no such thing as a rational ethic exists does not imply "tolerance" and "pluralism," as champions of positivism such as Milton Friedman falsely claim, and moral absolutism does not imply "intolerance" and "dictatorship." To the contrary, without absolute values "tolerance" and "pluralism" are just other arbitrary ideologies, and there is no reason to accept them rather than any others such as cannibalism and slavery. Only if absolute values, such as a human right of self-ownership exist, that is, only if "pluralism" or "tolerance" are not merely among a multitude of tolerable values, can pluralism and tolerance in fact be safeguarded.

Precisely. The strong implication, here, would appear to be that if we were vouchsafed such knowledge, then we would be justified in imposing our values on others. But this is hardly in keeping with the libertarian ethos.

Further, Friedman is guilty of tolerance, and humility with a vengeance. So much so it amounts to a stultifying skepticism. If it is reminiscent of anything, it is that of multiculturalism's claim that no society can possibly be better than any other. If no one can really know anything about anything, and are as humble as Milton Friedman claims to be, how can we even engage in political philosophy? Yet if there is anyone associated at least in the public mind with taking strong stances on issues, a host of them as it happens, it is Professor Friedman.

See original here:
Friedman on Intolerance: A Critique