The topic for the week is “¿Are libertarians truly skeptics?”.

Libertarianism is a philosophy started by Ayn Rand. Using reasoning she concluded that the perfect personal philosophy is “¡I got mine! ¡Screw you if you cannot get yours!”. She concluded that government should do nothing for helping the unfortunate and that the government should get rid of all progressive income-taxes and replace them with regressive consumption-taxes. She considered these to be natural universal principles of nature.

David Hume states that one can not derive an aught from an is.* Ayn Rand derives aught from is. Many believe that what Ayn Rand did is motivated question-begging. Basically, she had hers, did not care about others, and wanted her taxes lowered, so reasoned an argument supporting her personal believes, but her conclusions are not universal truths.

Modern libertarians consider themselves skeptics, but flat out reject huge chunks of science and reality because it is inconvenient for them personally. Libertarians have rejected, climate-change, smoking as being bad for human health, lead in fuels as being toxic, et cetera. Libertarians seem to not be skeptics at all, but motivated-reasoners.

Please discuss whether libertarians are truly skeptics.

* Since humans need an ethical system, and one cannot derive an aught from an is, the logical thing to do is state one’s values and then derive logically an ethical system. Working on 2 Principles:

* Try to increase well-being for all humanity.
* Respect the rights of individuals.

Skeptics derived secular humanism. It is the most common ethical system among skeptics. Skeptics acknowledge that the 2 guiding principles are personal choices, not universal principles of nature.

I wouldn't really consider any political system inherently skeptical. I'd consider any kind of overarching philosophy, political or not, is the result of skepticism (ideally), in that you derive your ideals from reason and critical thinking. I'm kind of a libertarian, so I can answer question people have about libertarians. Just because some libertarians have rejected science and reality doesn't mean all (or even the majority) do, the ones who do just get more attention. Overall I'd say that people think that about libertarians because libertarian thinking is heavily based on personal choice. Take smoking for example; even though smoking is bad for you, if I want to smoke anyways, that's my choice not yours. On the surface, it may look like they are rejecting that cigarettes are bad for you, but they really aren't saying this.

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I think certain aspects of libertarian economics are certainly nonskeptical. Ayn Rand was surely the apex of the movement.

Many libertarians are surely nonskeptics for the reasons you listed.

I think libertarians who insist that their policies provide the greatest welfare in all circumstances are ignoring too much evidence in favor of motivated reasoning, definitely. Now this can go for just about anyone, but I see libertarians trying to insist that "all skeptics should be libertarians" as if the debate is settled, which is clearly arrogant and foolish.

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Take smoking for example; even though smoking is bad for you, if I want to smoke anyways, that's my choice not yours. On the surface, it may look like they are rejecting that cigarettes are bad for you, but they really aren't saying this.

To clarify what he's saying:
Some libertarians (not you or even most perhaps, but some) will take this and say "Well, smoking isn't really that bad for you" as a way to get around the cognitive dissonance, because even if they believe in smoking for reasons of personal liberty, they may find cognitive dissonance in performing an act with so few apparent upsides as justification to themselves.

Even more extreme are libertarians who (like Penn and Teller on Bullshit before they retracted) claim that Second Hand Smoking is harmless, despite clear and obvious evidence that it does, because they are motivated by their desire to smoke anywhere.

I should also address the common libertarian statement (at least, commonly encountered by me) which is "My liberty stops at your nose."
We have a word for something where someone punches just short of other people's noses - Assault. It's unlawful intimidation to make threatening attacks on someone and not carry them through (carry through is called battery), and this is for a good reason, because people should not be subject to violent intimidation in their daily lives.

Now, I am aware that not all libertarians (indeed probably not even most) believe they should have freedom of violent intimidation, but it's hardly the only example. Climate change is another, because the solution (restricting the liberty of property owners) is considered untenable to libertarians, so they must address their cognitive dissonance - ie, if pollution harms others, then it's wrong, so therefore pollution must not be harming others.

Not to harp on you or anything, I just wanted to expound on the smoking point.

4109782 I get that you're not harping on me. As long as we don't get into ad hominem or other fallacies, we're ok.

Some libertarians (not you or even most perhaps, but some) will take this and say "Well, smoking isn't really that bad for you" as a way to get around the cognitive dissonance, because even if they believe in smoking for reasons of personal liberty, they may find cognitive dissonance in performing an act with so few apparent upsides as justification to themselves.

Got it, cognitive dissonance isn't hugely relevant though, if we're using that as a guideline, the majority of the human population aren't skeptics.

I should also address the common libertarian statement (at least, commonly encountered by me) which is "My liberty stops at your nose."
We have a word for something where someone punches just short of other people's noses - Assault. It's unlawful intimidation to make threatening attacks on someone and not carry them through (carry through is called battery), and this is for a good reason, because people should not be subject to violent intimidation in their daily lives.

Wow, I haven't heard anyone say that since middle school at the latest. I have a couple of things to say about this. Anyone who thinks they have this right in any kind of society is an idiot. When people decide to live in a society (even going back to to proto humans), they give up rights like those. People have pretty much never had that "right." Here's a classic counter argument; if you have the right to punch and stop it just before contact, then so do I and I can do that right back to you (you also run the risk of running into someone who can defend themselves, assault against someone else can very easily turn into battery against you before you pull the punch). In order to believe a libertarian society to work you basically need faith in humanity (which is why I'm not a libertarian), this doesn't mean just individuals, but businesses, corporations, and other large groups as well. Ideally that situation never comes up.

Libertarians vary on whether they believe in climate change, some do believe while others don't. There actually is logic when libertarians say things like the EPA shouldn't exist. On a large scale, they think companies should self regulate and set their own standards (again requires faith in humanity) or that other non government bodies should do the regulating. On a small scale they believe that property owners tend to have a better idea of what is good for the land than large government bodies. In some cases, this may be true in other it isn't.

I realize that I haven't been talking about skepticism, I've just mostly explaining what libertarians believe. I'm fine either way.

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Got it, cognitive dissonance isn't hugely relevant though, if we're using that as a guideline, the majority of the human population aren't skeptics.

You're right. They aren't.
They can be skeptical, but most of the human population does not have an adequate skeptical toolkit. I'd like to promote such tools, and addressing cognitive dissonance is one of them.

Anyone who thinks they have this right in any kind of society is an idiot.

Welcome to the world of extreme libertarians.

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You're right. They aren't.
They can be skeptical, but most of the human population does not have an adequate skeptical toolkit. I'd like to promote such tools, and addressing cognitive dissonance is one of them.

got it, thanks.

Welcome to the world of extreme libertarians.

true, but can you really judge a group by its extremists?

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No, I judge them by their mainstream members. Mainstream libertarians are not comically evil like the Randians or the like. And, really, I don't "judge" them that harshly! Mostly I just think that they're trying to make sense of an imperfect world, the same as the rest of us.

The origins of the phrase if you were curious

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I wasn't trying to imply that you did, I'm sorry if my comment made it sound like I was. Thanks for that article, I haven't really heard that saying taken seriously so it'll be interesting to find out where it came from.