article reference “From Liberty to Welfare”

Liberty and Welfare
www.jstor.org – www.jstor.org/stable/2382169

briefs:
In his essay “From Liberty to Welfare”, philosopher James P. Sterba argues that a morally consistent application of libertarian premises, including that of negative liberty, requires that a libertarian must endorse “the equality in the distribution of goods and resources required by a socialist state.” Sterba presents the example of a typical conflict situation between the rich and poor “in order to see why libertarians are mistaken about what their ideal requires.” He argues that such a situation is correctly seen as a conflict of negative liberties: the right of the rich not to be interfered with in the satisfaction of their luxury needs is morally trumped by the right of the poor “not to be interfered with in taking from the surplus possessions of the rich what is necessary to satisfy their basic needs.” According to Sterba, the liberty of the poor should be morally prioritized in light of the fundamental moral principle ‘ “Ought” implies “Can” ‘ from which it follows that it would be unreasonable to ask the poor to relinquish their liberty not be interfered with, noting that “in the extreme case it would involve asking or requiring the poor to sit back and starve to death” and that “by contrast it would not be unreasonable to ask and require the rich to sacrifice their liberty to meet some of their needs so that the poor can have the liberty to meet their basic needs.” Having argued that ‘ ”Ought” implies “Can” ’ establishes the reasonability of asking the rich to sacrifice their luxuries for the basic needs of the poor, Sterba invokes a second fundamental principle, “The Conflict Resolution Principle” to argue that it is reasonable to make it a moral requirement. He concludes by arguing that the application of these principles to the international context makes a compelling case for socialist distribution on a world scale