Libertarians generally agree that competent
adults should not be forced to do anything by the state
unless it prevents harm to third parties. Coercion is permissible
to prevent theft, murder, physical abuse, and fraud;
enforce contracts; and punish competent people for harming
others (Buchanan). The best-known defender of this
view, Robert Nozick (1974), follows the eighteenth-century
philosopher John Locke in maintaining that people’s right
to their fairly obtained property is fundamental and determines
the proper functions of the state and the moral
interactions among individuals.
People are entitled to their holdings and may dispose of
them as they wish, according to this view. They argue that
the state should not redistribute people’s wealth in accordance
with a pattern of distribution that examines outcomes
(such as utilitarianism and egalitarianism) or uses coercive
measures to take people’s holdings, and adults should be free
to fashion social arrangements out of their ideas of compassion,
justice, and solidarity (Engelhardt). People do not have
a responsibility to be charitable, say libertarians, but acts of
charity are praiseworthy and should be encouraged.
Libertarians hold that children’s healthcare is the responsibility
of their guardians, not the state. Market forces
of supply and demand and choices about how to use their
own money should shape the kind of healthcare people
select for themselves and their children. If parents want to
pay for special services
casino en ligne francais such as growth hormones or repeated
organ transplants, they should be permitted to do so.
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., argues that societies can decide
morally who is entitled to healthcare of a certain kind within
certain limitations. However, a society does not, for example,
have “the moral authority to forbid consensual acts
among agreeing adults, such as agreement to sell an organ”
(Engelhardt, p. 10).
Sympathy for libertarianism depends on whether it is
believed to offer enough protection for people, especially
children and impoverished or incompetent adults. This view
arguably benefits the wealthy and powerful; because most
children are neither, it might create an age bias against
children. Libertarians argue that competent adults should
pay their own way, but when do people really do that?
Typically, people’s healthcare insurance gives them access to
institutions heavily subsidized by public money. People who
“pay their own way” may pay just a bit more for many more
services. Those who cannot pay more are unfairly excluded.
Libertarians might agree that separate institutions should be
set up in which people truly pay their full share even if that
would mean that few could afford such added care.
Libertarians usually favor special state protection for
children, allowing the state to interfere with parents who
endanger, neglect, or harm children. This can include
providing children with a “safety net” of basic healthcare and
social services. A system favoring special benefits based on
redistribution of wealth for competent adults, however, is
considered unjust. Hence, a system like that in the United
States that provides many social and health benefits to
competent and even wealthy adults but not to children, for
example, in the allocation of healthcare benefits, goods, and
services, would be viewed by libertarians as unjust.
