Does Virtue Presuppose Liberty?

Published in

Are You Free

6 min readOct 26, 2022

“Christian economist Wilhelm Ropke argues that we need a morally sound culture to sustain liberty. Along those lines, CS Lewis says that it is freedom that makes goodness in this world worth having. So, think of virtue in liberty like a moral sandwich: virtue presupposes liberty, and in return, liberty sustains Stewart’s virtue. Liberty and bring you need each other.” 6 Called to Freedom. Chapter written by Elise Daniel.

I think that this line of argument is so deep, foundational, and profound. It really does make you take a step back, looking through the history of mankind, the different situations across the world, and think of some of the arguments in our own land.

I have discussed before the idea that the mindset of being anti-politics or politics agnostic (a= not, gnostic = to know) is actually one that has the most residents in the liberty movement. The Democrats and Republicans want you to care about politics, they want you to believe in their message and ideal for your life that their tribe or a group has dropped up for all those that share the same land and citizenship. They do not just believe in persuading you of their vision, citizen, but instead want you to be forced about their 3 x 5 card of allowable opinion. (A common saying from the well-known liberty podcast Tom Woods).

A large reason that people are able to care less or not much at all about politics is that in many other ways, people value being free to live the life they are. It would be like me coming to someone and saying that I had a way to make a great income on the side for them. If they were making $200,000 at their job, though, and they liked it, they would probably blow me off and keep on track with whatever they were already doing. My offer would not be relevant to them. Their present issues are not money. They are not “money poor,” they might be human energy poor, time poor, or spiritually poor.

So, in 2020, people saw their jobs ripped away from them, their freedoms to freely associate with people in whatever way they wanted to, and their freedom to choose their own health risk (Covid/masking) in a way that suited their conscience and circumstances. They are like the man who was making $200,000, having to take a pay cut to $80,000 because of some government regulation that they had nothing to do with. Now they see the confidence they had that they were in control could be foiled by some random rules or laws that have nothing to do with them. They might not be hurting for money yet, but all it takes is a few new rules that are intended “for their own good” but result in their harm to bring them down to being money poor or even losing their job.

Most people tend to be overly optimistic. That is why people keep buying into stocks, even when they are at an all-time high. It is the reason why people still decided to stay when a hurricane warning comes through on a coastal city (like hurricane Katrina did) because it probably wouldn’t affect them, right? They think that people in power are good-willed and competent. They think that they will eventually be the one who will be that “lucky” lotto winner, avoid cancer, and grow wealth into infinity. They assume their fellow man will stay virtuous and not seek to violate their self-ownership (their freedom to go on about their lives in the way they see fit.)

In a democratic representative country, the dynamic of the people in the government body falls as such: virtuous people elect virtuous people. Eventually, certain virtuous people decide they have faith in better virtues than others. After a season of choosing leaders in government that will promote their version, people will eventually fight back. (like the left is now) Another way of putting it is that people eventually try to get their views into government and put that on others. People do not want to be told what to do. Ironically instead of promoting liberty they will just do the same thing to anyone who does not agree with them. This state of affairs is a compromise and pits different ideologies against each other, making winners and losers. How many people can tolerate this and if anything or are frustrated by it, but I assume one of these idea groups goes too far and begins to become truly intolerant of anyone outside their box? At that point, once they have crossed that line, they have gone from compromised elitist semi-virtuous to full-blown non-virtuous freedom-hating tyrants.

This is the tension of the people grabbing the government. It is too much power, and it’s too easily abused. This is the argument of the liberty movement. We know the intentions are good. They both think they are making a difference in doing good in the world, but the result is; eventually, they find themselves playing with an atom (with the motive of bettering the world through science), and in the end, they create an atomic bomb with the power to destroy not only cities of millions but potentially all of mankind.

This is why for those in the liberty movement, no matter how convinced we personally are that our way of life is the best one, we never try and push it on everyone else by force. We know that in order to maintain freedom for ourselves, we must allow for freedom for everyone.

Besides, we still believe in changing the world. Liberty-minded people are the true optimists. We believe that things of value and truth can be found in the flame and escrow in popularity through freely sharing and persuading one another from citizen to citizen. Ideas do not need to be promoted with the proverbial gun or sword to someone’s head. Do you want people to actually believe the ideas freely?

I say all this to say that the quote is right. If we have no virtual, we will have no liberty, and often, what is called virtual is not virtual at all but is instead a vice. In order to hope that we will be free in the future, we must care about freedom for all, and that means caring about politics because caring about politics is a necessary evil. Do you love people to be held to the standard of doing good, aka virtue? We must maintain liberty as an immovable unchanging value.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” — James Madison

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“Being Libertarian means caring about freedom for everyone. It means respecting the rights of other people, even when we find their actions or words disagreeable.” -Tom Palmer

Tim is a Christian author. His worldview that informs his writing is Calvinist, Baptist, and Libertarian. His main series is his Christian picture book series, “About God for Kids”, where he discusses the attributes of God in a way kids can digest. He also wrote a Christian Romance novel, libertarian book for beginners, and Christian coloring books. He graduated with a Bachelor’s in Biblical Studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.