Compassion--a critical factor for attaining and maintaining a free society.

• Author: Higgs, Robert
• Position: Etceteras ... - Report

A ship cannot make much headway when it is held back by a sea anchor. In our voyage toward a truly free society, lack of compassion for the less fortunate acts as such an anchor.

All libertarians dream of a better world, but in their view the prerequisite for its realization usually boils down to something like a nearly universal embrace of the nonaggression principle (NAP). We have no doubt that such an embrace would transform the world for the better in countless ways. Yet, as we see the matter, even a world in which everyone observes the NAP might still lack some essential features required for people's flourishing and for the preservation of that rights-respecting wonderland.

One such missing feature is compassion for others--compassion not only as a feeling of empathy but also as a personal engagement in voluntary efforts to relieve others' suffering and to act out our fellow feeling with all persons, not simply with those who are, either by their own efforts or by virtue of their good fortune, already flourishing or at least getting along fairly well.

We must recognize that regardless of the nature of the prevailing social order, many people are bound to be in trouble. Some are born with unalterable physical and mental defects and deficiencies. Others have lost limbs, physical capacities, or their sanity as a result of accidents or other damaging experiences. Some are children without parents or proper guardians or children suffering from parental neglect or abuse. Others are elderly and no longer capable of making their way through life without substantial assistance. Some have done everything a responsible person ought to do, yet they have run into bad luck again and again. Some have made bad choices. The foregoing list of examples might be extended in detail and at great length, but the point is obvious: even the freest imaginable society will include many people who cannot care for themselves either temporarily or permanently. So something must be done about them. This problem cannot be wished away, and we ignore it at our peril.

Notwithstanding the presence of many kinds of needy persons in society, many libertarians, for a variety of reasons that we will not spell out here, tend toward an indifference to those who cannot enter into beneficial exchanges with them, whether those exchanges be economic, social, or personal. "Quid pro quo" seems to be their chief motto. When other people present no opportunities for beneficial...