Anti-Climacus

LINK: Joe Carter makes some good points on libertarianism:

"Libertarians often claim that an individual’s body is their own property and are entitled to certain inherent rights."

I was always fond, myself, of the Lockean argument that an individual's body is, in fact, God's property, and a person does not, therefore, have the right to do whatever they want with it.

"While I hate to make such a broad generalization, a core tenet of the libertarian philosophy appears to be a belief in the absurd notion that the bad effects of human behavior can be restrained to the individual level. In rare instances that might be possible but, generally speaking, unless a person is a hermit, their actions will affect others."

I believe the traditional out for a libertarian here is the "harm principle," a slimy bit of logic that says that a person can't be held morally responsible for non-certain, non-concrete effects of their behavior.