American - Educator | 1956 -
Libertarians argue that no normal adult has the right to impose choices on other normal adults, except in abnormal circumstances, such as when one person finds another unconscious and administers medical assistance or calls an ambulance.
Tom G. Palmer
MedicalChoicesPersonCircumstances
But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as paternalists of both left and right believe.
ChoicesBelieveRightReasonNormal
Obligations may be universal or particular.
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Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by others.
CircumstancesOthersNormalConsent
Equality of rights means that some people cannot simply impose obligations on others, for the moral agency and rights of those others would then be violated.
EqualityPeopleMoralSome People
To repeat, communitarians maintain that we are constituted as persons by our particular obligations, and therefore those obligations cannot be a matter of choice.
ChoiceMatterRepeatCannotMaintain
It is obvious that different individuals require different things to live good, healthy, and virtuous lives.
GoodLiveHealthyThingsDifferent
Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.
GoodWorldLibertyInevitableReason
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