A post titled “On the Necessity of Libertarian Metaphysics” was recently published on the “Classical Liberal” channel, which caught my attention. The author accuses modern libertarians of drifting away from the clean and clear concept of God-given natural rights and instead engaging in some kind of atheistic nominalist nonsense. He argues that because their ideology stands on a foundation as shaky as nominalism (that is, the denial of the real existence of ideas and the assertion instead that the world consists of unique objects, and any generalizations are merely terms), libertarians are unable to prove anything to anyone.
Of course, the idea of God-given natural rights is completely shattered by a simple objection: no, Odin gave me natural rights because I honor him, and he also gave me the right to rob you and take you into slavery; he gave you no rights because you don’t even know how to hold a sword.
Nominalism lies at the very heart of the scientific method. By observing countless unique objects and phenomena (more precisely, simply receiving signals from the sense organs), a person notices patterns, proposes a hypothesis about the nature of the observed regularity, tests this hypothesis, and integrates it into a theory. Theories exist within a scientific paradigm, but the process of observing the world does not cease, which means new hypotheses, theories, and paradigms will emerge that describe and explain what is observed more accurately.
Libertarianism as an ideology has existed for as long as there has been the power of man over man and, accordingly, the desire to avoid power over oneself. The concepts used to describe this ideology differ across different times and societies. One can only conditionally trace that, for instance, the concept of self-ownership appeared in the 18th century, and the beloved NAP appeared in the 20th; perhaps in another two centuries, some other fashionable principle will be on the lips of the libertarians of that era.
Building a system of logically correct conclusions from non-contradictory postulates is not such a difficult task. Rebuilding the system in accordance with the redefinition of one of the concepts used is also not a problem. The problem is how to make this system generally accepted, or at least dominant, or at least authoritative, or at least known. An old theory has many advantages over a new one: it also explains the world, it also predicts facts, and additionally, it already belongs to the dominant paradigm. The new one still has to prove that its descriptive and predictive power is higher and that it interfaces better with other theories. How does it do this? Usually quite simply: it just survives until the carriers of the old paradigm physically die out (hello, Odin).
Therefore, libertarians do not need to prove anything to their opponents. Their task is to preserve and gradually expand the core of supporters, accumulate experience in applying their theories, and gather useful technologies that work within libertarianism but malfunction within other ideologies… And, of course, not to physically die out before their opponents.
As for how the concept of “human” will be defined by the time libertarianism becomes dominant, that is purely a matter of convenience of application. For some, “a featherless biped” will suffice, for others “a representative of the species Homo sapiens,” and for some, the concept of “human” may already seem redundantly narrow, so they will operate with some “legal agent.” And so be it.
