Lecture 3: Free to Choose

What this lecture covers

Having examined utilitarianism, the course turns to libertarianism, a "strong rights" theory that treats individual liberty as close to absolute. The lecture explains what libertarians believe government should never do, then centers on a sustained class debate about whether redistributive taxation of the wealthy is a form of coercion.

After watching, you can list the three kinds of laws libertarians consider illegitimate, explain Robert Nozick's argument that taxation is akin to forced labor, and describe the idea of self-possession that underlies the libertarian case for a minimal state.

Key ideas

• Libertarianism: the view that the fundamental individual right is the right to liberty, because we are separate persons not available for use toward any collective purpose.
• The minimal state: libertarians permit only enough government to provide national defense, police, and courts to enforce contracts and property rights.
• No paternalist legislation: libertarians reject laws, such as seat-belt requirements, that protect people from themselves.
• No morals legislation: libertarians reject laws that enforce a particular vision of virtue, such as historical bans on gay and lesbian intimacy.
• No redistribution: libertarians treat taxation for redistribution as a form of coercion, since it takes earnings without full consent.
• Justice in acquisition and transfer: Nozick's two-part test for whether a distribution of wealth is just, based on how holdings were acquired and exchanged rather than on the resulting pattern.
• Taxation as forced labor: Nozick's argument that if the state may claim the fruits of your labor, it effectively claims a share of your labor and thus of you.
• Self-possession: the foundational libertarian premise that each person owns themselves, which grounds the objection to using anyone as a means to collective welfare.

Walkthrough

What libertarianism rules out (0:03)

Sandel defines libertarianism as a strong theory of rights: individuals are separate beings, not resources for the community to allocate. He lists three things libertarians say the modern state has no right to do: pass paternalist laws like seat-belt mandates, pass morals legislation such as historical laws against gay and lesbian intimacy, and redistribute wealth from rich to poor through taxation. A minimal "night-watchman" state limited to defense, police, and contract enforcement is the libertarian ideal.

Justice in holdings, and the case of Bill Gates (11:10)

Sandel explains that for libertarians, whether a distribution of wealth is just cannot be read off from the pattern alone; it depends on whether the initial holdings were acquired fairly and whether subsequent transfers were voluntary. He illustrates the scale of inequality with Bill Gates's net worth and Michael Jordan's earnings, then asks whether it would be just to tax them heavily to fund food, health care, or education for the poor.

Nozick: taxation as forced labor (21:25)

Students debate whether redistributive taxation is theft. Sandel presents Robert Nozick's argument: if the state has a right to take the earnings from your labor, that is morally equivalent to claiming a right to a portion of your labor itself, which is what forced labor means. This leads to the deeper premise underlying the whole libertarian position: the idea of self-possession, that each person is the sole owner of themselves.

Team Libertarian answers the objections (33:45)

Sandel invites three student volunteers to form "Team Libertarian" and respond live to objections raised in class: that the poor need the money more, that democratic taxation is not coercive because it is consented to collectively, and that the wealthy owe society a debt for their success. The team argues that need is different from desert, that majority rule does not override fundamental rights, and that successful people have already paid for the services of those who helped them.

Challenging self-possession (48:02)

A student, Victoria, challenges the premise itself: living in society means accepting limits on what you may do with yourself, so perhaps self-possession isn't absolute. Sandel closes by noting that if you reject the libertarian argument, you need a place in the chain of reasoning to break in, and previews that the course will next examine John Locke, from whom Nozick borrows the idea of self-ownership.

Before you watch

• Watch Lectures 1 and 2 first, since this session assumes familiarity with the consequentialist reasoning of utilitarianism that libertarianism is positioned against.
• Note that libertarianism here is a philosophical rights-based theory, not a specific political party platform.

Check your understanding

1. What three types of government action do libertarians consider illegitimate, and why?
2. How does Nozick's argument connect taxation to the concept of forced labor?
3. What is the difference between justice in acquisition and justice in transfer, and why does it matter for judging whether a distribution of wealth is fair?
4. What objection did Victoria raise against the idea of self-possession, and how might a libertarian respond?