Learning About Liberty

The classical liberal, or libertarian, approach to morality and poli- tics brings together related themes that will be both placed in their historical context and woven together more tightly in the coming modules. In this module, the basic ideas of individual and impre- scriptible rights, spontaneous order, and the rule of law are presented and examined. Each of these ideas is implicated in the others: the spontaneous order of the free society is built on a foundation of secure individual rights, and law is intimately connected with lib- erty, for to be free in society is for all to be equally subjected to the same known law, a law that allows us to coordinate our activities with others and thus to create complex forms of social order. The deep roots of these ideas, reaching back into antiquity, give libertari- anism a solidity other political philosophies lack.

Libertarianism draws on a multitude of different sciences, or orga- nized bodies of knowledge, including history, philosophy, econom- ics, sociology, anthropology, and law. Thus, "The Ideas of Liberty" devotes some attention to the status of the human sciences and to the meaning and importance of the principles of intentionality and methodological individualism in properly grounded social science. In addition to laying bare the scientific misunderstandings and equivocations that lie at the foundation of collectivist thinking, "The Ideas of Liberty" explores the relationships of the individual to the group, of action and design to order, of society to the state, of coercion to persuasion, and of "natural law" to "positive law." The ideas of natural law, natural rights, and "self-proprietorship" are traced through history, from the ancient Greeks to modern times, and used to illuminate the proper relationships between persons and between persons and governments. There is also a careful dis- cussion of the relationship between "rights" thinking and "utilitari- anism," which have been alleged by some

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