Libertarian views of rights

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Some Libertarians consider "rights" to be the general moral right to do all that one is entitled to do. They argue that other "rights" such as "the right to a good education" or "the right to have free access to water" are not legitimate rights and do not deserve the same protections, since these involve the labor or property of other non-consenting persons. Libertarians often cite the example of a right to "the pursuit of happiness" as asserted in the United States Declaration of Independence, saying that it does not posit a right to be provided with happiness but a right to pursue it, and that the wording as such illustrates the libertarian sensibilities of the author, Thomas Jefferson.

One way of describing the distinction is that a "right" to be left alone by other people is a negative right whereas a "right" to be provided with something through the action of another is a positive right. According to libertarians, a right requiring an individual to provide something to another is not logically compatible with a right of all individuals to "do as they will" - in other words, if a "right" necessitates that others be enslaved, it cannot be a right. Some critics of this libertarian conception of rights believe that this distinction is poorly defined, or invalid. Other critics, who grant a distinction, assert that people may be forced to "serve mankind" if such servitude is intended to maximize "the public good." This last is essentially a denial of the validity of rights. These sometimes cite what they believe to be a moral obligation of individuals to provide for others (altruism). This is a central point of contention concerning libertarianism.

Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964; his supporters contrast his libertarian rationale with the racist one of some other opponents.

One example of such a dispute was over the so-called public accommodation laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which held that privately owned businesses were forbidden to exclude customers (based on racial discrimination, for example). Libertarians argued that the unserved customers had no right to services that businesses did not want to provide and that government had no right to coerce businesses into serving them, either. In a similar case, after the Boy Scouts of America were forced by the New Jersey Supreme Court to include gay members (a decision later overturned in the Supreme Court case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale), Lew Rockwell wrote: "There is no right to crash a private dinner party... The owners of the house have the right to invite or not invite on any grounds. Similarly, there is no right to invade a private organization."[1] The authors of the Boy Scouts decision disagree: "The sad truth is that excluded groups and individuals have been prevented from full participation in the social, economic, and political life of our country. The human price of this bigotry has been enormous.... [A]dherence to the principles of equality demands that our legal system protect the victim of invidious discrimination." In the face of the question what may make their legal system rightful, Libertarians who oppose discrimination argue that economic incentives to gain customers make such laws unnecessary; their opponents counter that racism and homophobia may make inclusion impossible without government intervention.

In both personal and business dealings, libertarians believe private individuals should be allowed to discriminate upon any basis they choose in regard to deciding with whom they will associate. However, when it comes to a public institution, which is funded by taxpayers, they do not believe such discrimination should be permitted. Barry Goldwater, for example, unlike other opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "opposed it for libertarian reasons, not supporting the idea that the government should be able to tell businesses what to do," rather than out of racism; he "had desegregated Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, years before."[2]

Libertarians argue that rights rest originally in individuals and never in groups such as nations, races, religions, classes, or cultures, and distinguish between a wrong done to individual members of a group and the group itself. This position also undercuts rhetorical expressions such as, "The government has the right to ...", since under this formulation "the government" has no original rights but only those duties with which it has been lawfully entrusted under the citizens' rights. When democratic concerns and the libertarian view of individual liberty conflict, libertarians generally side with their view of rights. Libertarianism frequently dovetails neatly therefore with strict constructionism and the constitution in exile.

To the extent that libertarians advocate any system of law, it tends to be common law, which they see as less arbitrary, more consistent, and more adaptable over time. Friedrich Hayek had some of the most developed ideas on what libertarian common law would be like, while Robert Nozick, Richard Epstein, Loren Lomasky, Jan Narveson and Randy Barnett are among the most influential modern thinkers in this area.