A Proof that Libertarianism Is Either False or Banal

Abstract

In The Libertarian Idea, and countless other tracts, Jan Narveson urges us to embrace libertarianism.¹ But his urging and embracing are ambiguous. A person could urge a position for any number of reasons, including, for example, the following. What makes even a wrongheaded position worth pursuing is that by discovering why it is wrongheaded we can work toward one that is less so. A person can forget that he is pursuing a position only provocatively. Indeed sometimes, if the pursuit is to bear fruit, he might need to forget. In such cases, urging a position only provocatively and urging a position genuinely will be phenomenologically indistinguishable. But then, for the same reason, so too will be a person’s being urged to embrace a position genuinely and her being urged to embrace it only provocatively. Might Narveson’s advocacy of libertarianism be provocative rather than genuine, and if so, would it make a difference?