capitalism

522 Virtue
Similarly, a culture of scientific inquiry and progress
may generate certain intellectual virtues, such as willingness
to listen to criticism, toleration of alternative
hypotheses, willingness to consult reason and evidence,
and so forth. Yet such a culture may require the preexistence
of the virtues it fosters for it to emerge at all. Once
virtue-generating institutions are established, they may
well continue to generate and sustain the virtue necessary
for their perpetuation. Even so, two questions would still
remain: Are all or the most important virtues sustained by
the market order? Are the dispositions engendered by such
practices and institutions truly virtues in any recognizable
classical sense, that is, are they goods pursued for their
own sake and not because they contribute to some other
end, such as successful generation of wealth? Libertarians
have not written a great deal about either of those questions
perhaps because they do not apparently need to be
answered for free societies to exist. They would be relevant,
instead, to the important question of whether such
societies are good.
If the establishment and maintenance of free societies
are dependent on the prior presence of at least some virtues,
then presumably libertarians would need to be concerned
about the generation of those virtues where they do not now
exist. That would presuppose a common moral framework
or foundation for libertarianism. Inasmuch as libertarianism
is a political theory and does not aspire to be a more widely
embracing moral theory, a variety of moral theories might
be compatible with it. Those theories might have different
approaches to the virtues. For example, the classical liberal
writer Wilhelm von Humboldt, who exercised a great influence
over John Stuart Mill’s work On Liberty, identified
“the true end of man” as “the highest and most harmonious
development of his powers to a complete and consistent
whole” and argued that “the evil results of a too extensive
solicitude on the part of the state are ...shown in the suppression
of all active energy, and the necessary deterioration
of the moral character.” The key concept for Humboldt
is Bildung, which, rendered into English, carries the sense
of education or formation of character.
Ayn Rand articulated another perspective associated
with libertarianism that openly professes the importance of
virtue. In her essay, “The Objectivist Ethics,” she identifies
certain qualities of character as being necessary for living
the right kind of life. Those virtues include rationality, productiveness,
and pride. Although Rand believed that if
these virtues were widely possessed society would certainly
be better, her justification of them was not based on
their effects on social life and interaction. In this particular
regard, her position is akin to that of von Humboldt, in that
she defends these virtues as constituents of a good or fully
human life.
For Rand, free-market exchange is a reflection of the
virtues she championed. Yet that again raises a version
of the problem mentioned previously. It would seem that
traditional methods of moral education would be needed
to generate the virtues she admires and, in turn, the
social order that would be sustained by them. Yet her
ethical philosophy stands in some contrast to what she
regards as the altruistic and virtue-destroying bias of the
dominant philosophical and educational traditions and
institutions. Presumably, then, the right ideas about
ethics and markets are needed to inform a new tradition
of moral education, which will in turn support the market
order as well as make possible morally virtuous lives
that are good in and for themselves. If Rand is right,
without the replacement of those traditions by more suitable
ideas, the market framework would overlay a substratum
unsuitable to its support, making the collapse of
the free society inevitable.
In general, libertarian thinkers believe that virtues must
be voluntarily self-realized to be virtues at all, that force
and virtue are generally incompatible. Libertarianism is by
no means unique or original in wondering about the connection
between virtue and social order. That problem is as
old as Socrates. But by leaving the state out of the definition
and direct promotion of virtue, libertarianism offers a
unique perspective on virtue—one that separates it from
politics as other approaches do not. That separation may
serve not to diminish virtue, but to give it an added focus or
importance.
See also Aristotle; Freedom; Mill, John Stuart; Positive Liberty;
Rand, Ayn
Further Readings
DDU
Aristotle. Nicomacheaon Ethics. Hippocrates G. Apostle, trans.
Grinnell, IA: Peripatetic Press, 1984.
Buchanan, James. The Logical Foundations of Constitutional
Liberty. Vol. 1. Chap. 5. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1999.
Den Uyl, Douglas J. “Liberalism and Virtue.” Public Morality, Civic
Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism. T. William Boxx
and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing, 2000.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von. The Limits of State Action. Indianapolis,
IN: Liberty Fund, 1993 [1854].
Macedo, Stephen. Liberal Virtues. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991.
Mueller, John. “Democracy, Capitalism, and the End of Transition.”
Post-Communism: Four Perspectives. Michael Mandelbaum, ed.
New York: Council on Foreign Relations Books, 1996.
North, Douglas. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic
Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet Books,
1964.
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis,
IN: Liberty Fund, 1979.