UNIVERSAL IMPERFECTION VS PERSONAL PERFECTION:

Regarding man as an imperfect creature, the division between conservatives and libertarians occurs because the former see an imperative for the state to shepherd errant persons toward greater virtue, whereas the latter are leery about entrusting too much power to the state when its guardians always will be fallible men. Conservatives embrace a paternalistic structure whereas libertarians favor a minimalist one. Ironically, but insurmountably, fusionism can never be a lasting paradigm precisely because defining the state's proper aims and scope is intrinsic to politics, since issues of the day must be analyzed within some theoretic framework. Murray Rothbard puts it most explicitly: "Intellectually, the concept must be judged a failure."

Since the specifics of conservative and libertarian statecraft are more exhaustively articulated in other works, the richness of the present book is found in the colorful arguments and unexpected concessions which often emerge. "My instincts are libertarian, and I am sure that I would never have joined effort with the conservatives if I had not been convinced that they are the defenders of freedom today," Richard M. Weaver confesses. Advancing Hobbes as the creator of a liberal state that permits the "greatest range of human liberty consistent with peace," Walter Berns complains that he's a conservative because libertarians' view of nature is wrong: "I do not believe that without government there can be any order." Machan contends that "man is perfectible" and conservatives are anti‑rationalistic, but Meyer observes that it is the "pure" libertarians like Machan who cannot satisfactorily account for concepts like Providence and honor. And so it goes for 225 pages.

One recurrent criticism voiced most forcefully by Bozell and Wilhelmsen is that the logic of libertarianism implies a belief in the Ubermensch. What they find particularly objectionable is the view expressed by Meyer that virtuous actions are not ethically meaningful unless men perform them "free from the constraint of the physical coercion of an unlimited state." Drawing from Thomistic philosophy and employing withering rhetoric, Bozell denounces as a "burlesque of reason" the "inner logic of the dictum that virtue-not-freely-chosen is not virtue at all." The genius of his essay alone justifies the purchase of Freedom and Virtue. "In short, libertarianism's first command--maximize freedom--applies with equal vigor to all of society's activities; and the meaning of the command, in effect, is this: virtue must be made as difficult as possible," Bozell sarcastically concludes [italics original]. "While only a few men, if any, can be expected to meet the challenge successfully, the proliferation of unvirtuous acts in the objective order is one of the prices that must be paid for the fulfillment of heroic man."

Robert Nisbet offers a caveat of his own, observing, "I believe a state of mind is developing among libertarians in which the coercions of family, church, local community, and school will seem almost as inimical to freedom as those of the political government." Later in the volume, Nisbet's fear appears to be realized in Paul Kurtz's assertion that: "It is not evident that religious societies are any more moral than non-religious ones. Religious societies may be insensitive to other forms of injustice. They may seek to impose order, hierarchy, and the status quo on those who resist it." In a tightly reasoned reply, Edward B. McLean challenges the adequacy of Kurtz's secularized political assumptions. "All constructive notions of liberty are infused with the predicates of Christian faith and cannot be sustained without their explicit or implicit guidance," McLean notes.

Follow @brothersjudd