Can reliable international comparisons of human flourishing be made using subjective survey data?

 

The idea that human flourishing is the proper measure of a good society goes back to Aristotle, but modern attempts to compare flourishing internationally using subjective survey data raise difficult questions. That is illustrated in the scatter chart shown above - which compares the degree of human flourishing in different countries as measured by the new Global Flourishing Study (GFS) with average life evaluation data for those countries using the methodology of the World Happiness Report (WHR). The GFS flourishing index is based on surveys covering various aspects of human flourishing, while the WHR data derives from the Cantril Ladder approach: a single question asking people to rate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing the worst possible life and 10 representing the best possible life.

One would expect people who give a relatively low rating to their lives under the WHR approach to be assessed as having a relatively low degree of flourishing under the GFS approach, and vice versa for those who give their lives a relatively high rating. Surprisingly, the chart suggests little correlation between the two indexes. People in Tanzania, Egypt and Kenya, for example, have lower average life evaluation ratings than people in Sweden, the U.S. and Australia, yet are assessed under GFS methodology to have higher average levels of flourishing.

This divergence raises three questions which the following sections of this essay address:

• Does the methodology of the GFS incorporate more reliable standards for international comparisons than the WHR/Cantril approach?
• Is the GFS approach to measuring human flourishing consistent with Aristotelian ideas about the nature of flourishing?
• Do composite indexes provide a more reliable basis for international comparisons of opportunities to flourish?

Reliability of GFS Methodology

The Global Flourishing Study includes over 200,000 survey participants in 22 countries. The countries were selected to maximize coverage of the world’s population and to ensure geographic, cultural and religious diversity. It is a longitudinal panel study with intended annual survey data collection for 5 years. The domains of flourishing covered in the study encompass health, happiness, meaning, character, relationships and financial security.

More confidence can be placed on analyses using subjective data for individual countries than on cross-country comparisons because the former pose fewer problems in interpretation of survey questions. (Recent trends in indicators of subjective wellbeing in some wealthy countries are suggesting that young people are experiencing greater difficulty flourishing in those countries. I strongly support research directed toward improving understanding of why this is occurring and have made a personal contribution to this work.)

My main concern in this essay is with excessive reliance on subjective data in making international comparisons. The authors of the GFS note that caution is needed in interpreting cross-national differences (VanderWeele, 2025, p.647) but that has not prevented attention being drawn to  country rankings.

The scatter charts shown below suggest that at a national level there is more correlation between GFS flourishing and “happiness” and “life satisfaction” indicators than between GFS flourishing and WHR life evaluation. Nevertheless, the GFS index suggests that people in some countries are flourishing despite relatively low average scores for happiness and life satisfaction.

 

The happiness question is: “In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?” The life satisfaction question: “Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?” There has been extensive research related to the question of what standard of comparison people use in responding to such questions. Some research has suggested that people compare their current state to an adaptation level — a running average of past experience when asked to rate their happiness or life satisfaction. A large body of work suggests that relative income often matters as much as or more than absolute income for self-reports on wellbeing. Cross-cultural research has found that the implicit comparison standard vary by culture. Moreover, seemingly trivial contextual factors can dramatically shift happiness and life satisfaction reports.

In some ways, the GFS is more susceptible to standard of comparison problems than a simple life satisfaction or happiness survey:

• Self-rated health is known to be heavily reference dependent. People assess their health relative to age peers, to their own past health, or to an idealized standard. Which reference point dominates varies by culture and age.
• Questions relating to meaning and purpose are especially vulnerable to context effects, because "meaning" is a highly abstract judgment with no obvious natural metric. Whatever has been made salient by preceding questions — religious identity, family, work — is likely to dominate the response.
• Questions about honesty, generosity, self-control and so on invite comparison to either an ideal standard or a perceived social norm. Those standards can diverge sharply.

The Cantril ladder approach used in the WHR was designed to be self-anchoring to address some of those problems. By asking respondents to define "best possible life" and "worst possible life" for themselves, this approach sidesteps the problem of imposing a culturally specific conception of flourishing.

However, the perceptions that respondents have of the best possible and worst possible life depend on the reference group they use as a basis for comparison. That would not pose a problem if there is broad agreement among people throughout the world on what constitutes the best possible and worst possible life. Perhaps such broad agreement exists, but I am not aware of definitive research findings about that.

Aristotelian perspectives

Modern researchers who seek to quantify the extent to which people are flourishing often refer to Aristotle as a source of inspiration for their focus on a broad concept of human flourishing rather than on happiness as an emotional state. That raises the question of whether the GFS approach is consistent with Aristotelian perspectives.

The GFS view of human flourishing as multi-dimensional is certainly consistent with Aristotle’s approach. The domains identified in the overview of the GFS seem to be broadly consistent with Aristotle’s understanding of the basic goods of a flourishing human (VanderWeele, 2025).

However, from an Aristotelian perspective, it is disappointing that the study does not acknowledge the central importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) to individual flourishing. Practical wisdom is the intelligent management of one’s life with a view to attaining the goods necessary to one’s own flourishing. The exercise of practical wisdom is so intimately related to actualization of unique potentialities in the context of available opportunities that it makes sense to view flourishing as synonymous with “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom” (Den Uyl and Rasmussen, 2016, p. 33). 

Some research associated with the GFS has focused on mastery which is assessed by asking: “How often do you feel very capable in most things you do in life?” (Kim, 2025). There is some overlap between mastery and practical wisdom: the exercise of practical wisdom involves more than theoretical knowledge – it requires development of skills necessary to navigate real circumstances toward genuine flourishing. The mastery concept captures something of this efficacy dimension — the sense that one can actually direct one's life rather than being at the mercy of circumstances.

An important difference between mastery and practical wisdom is evident in the measurement of mastery in the GFS. Self-reported mastery ranges from 90% of the population in Mexico to 39% in Japan. Do such divergent responses reflect differences in the exercise of practical wisdom or differences in the incidence of hubris and modesty in different populations? There is no way of knowing. Responses to the mastery question capture a subjective sense of control which may have little to do with wisdom. Genuinely wise people with accurate perception of their own limitations do not necessarily score highly in their responses to the mastery question.

My point is that the exercise of practical wisdom – an activity integral to human flourishing – defies measurement using subjective survey data. There would be no point in including survey questions about the exercise of practical wisdom because the perceptions people have about the quality of decisions they make is often a poor guide to actual decision quality. A person of deficient character or limited understanding may feel entirely satisfied with their choices while lacking the practical wisdom required to make good choices.

Comparing opportunities using composite indexes

In deciding what to measure, it seems to me to be particularly important to understand the purposes for which measurements are being made. The overview of the GFS states:

“What we measure shapes what we discuss, what we know, what we aim for and the policies put in place to achieve those aims. We hope that the GFS itself, and the understandings that arise from it, will shift discussion and policy toward the promotion of flourishing” (VanderWeele, 2025, p.647).

That may be true, but it may also be a recipe for futile or counterproductive government interventions.

It seems to me that the central importance of practical wisdom to individual flourishing provides a strong reason to be modest about the ability of governments to promote human flourishing. The most governments can do is to influence opportunities available. The way individuals respond to those opportunities rests in their own hands.

 It is important to recognize that governments can have a profound impact on the opportunities for human flourishing. One of the most important contributions they can make is to reduce the negative impacts of their policies.

In Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I identified five basic goods of a flourishing human:

·        Wise and well-informed self-direction

·        Health and longevity

·        Positive relationships

·        Living in harmony with nature

·        Psychological well-being (Bates, 2021).

I noted that it is possible to teach people about the virtues of wise and well-informed self-direction, but it is doubtful that anyone has ever learned to exercise much practical wisdom in the management of their lives without having to accept responsibility for the choices they make. From a public policy perspective, it makes more sense to focus on the opportunities of people to exercise self-direction than to attempt to measure the quality of choices that they make. That is why I focused on objective measures of liberty in discussing opportunities for self-direction (Bates, 2021, pp. 65-6).

In considering opportunities for health and longevity, I argued that objective data on healthy life expectancy is a better indicator than self-reported health of differing prospects for individuals a long and healthy life in different countries (Bates, 2021, pp. 67-8).

Subjective data on levels of trust were suggested to measure differing opportunities for people to have positive relationships with others (Bates, 2021, pp. 68-9).

I discussed the complex relationships between economic growth and opportunities to live in harmony with nature (Bates, 2021, pp. 70-73).

Subjective data (WHR life evaluation) was used to indicate differing opportunities for people to enjoy psychological wellbeing (Bates, 2021, pp. 74-5).

Other researchers have also seen merit in using a mixture of subjective and objective indicators in making international comparisons of opportunities to flourish. The OECD’s Better Life Index is an example of a composite index that incorporates both objective and subjective components.

Conclusion

The scatter chart that opens this essay poses a genuine puzzle: why do country rankings of the Global Flourishing Study and World Happiness Report diverge so sharply? This essay has argued that the divergence reflects real limitations in both instruments rather than a straightforward vindication of either. Subjective survey data is susceptible to comparison-basis problems — the implicit standards people use when evaluating their lives vary by culture, context, and the framing of preceding questions — and these problems are considerably more serious for international comparisons than for within-country research. The Cantril ladder's self-anchoring design offers some protection against the imposition of culturally specific conceptions of flourishing, and its results have reasonable face validity when set alongside objective indicators of living standards and liberty. But whether people in different countries anchor the ladder's endpoints in comparable ways remains an open empirical question.

The more fundamental difficulty is philosophical. Both the GFS and the WHR treat subjective self-assessment as the primary evidence of flourishing. Aristotle, whose conception of eudaimonia inspired modern flourishing research, would have been skeptical of this. Flourishing in the Aristotelian sense is not simply a matter of feeling satisfied with one's life; it requires the exercise of practical wisdom — the intelligent, well-informed management of one's life in pursuit of genuine goods. People's perceptions of the quality of their choices are often unreliable guides to whether they are actually exercising such wisdom. This is not a limitation that better survey design can overcome; it reflects something important about the nature of flourishing itself.

These considerations point toward a more modest and pluralistic approach to international comparisons. Objective indicators — of liberty, healthy life expectancy, trust, and material security — can identify the opportunities available to people in different countries to lead flourishing lives. Subjective data retains value, particularly for tracking trends within countries over time. What neither approach can do is measure the quality of the choices individuals make within the opportunities available to them. That, in the end, is for individuals themselves to determine — which is precisely why the central policy implication of an Aristotelian perspective is not the promotion of flourishing by governments, but the protection and expansion of the conditions under which people can flourish for themselves.

References

Bates, Winton Russell, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).

Kim, Eric S. et. al. “Mapping demographic variations in sense of mastery across the world a cross-national analysis of 22 countries in the global flourishing study”, Scientific Reports, 15 (2025).

Lomas, T. et. al. “Exploring associations of three evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril's ladder, life satisfaction, happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries”, Scientific Reports, 16, (2026).

VanderWeele, T. J. et. al. “The Global Flourishing Study: Study profile and initial results on flourishing”, Nature Mental Health, 3(6) (2025) pp. 636–653.

The Architecture of Freedom: Randy Barnett’s Natural Law Case for a Free Society

This is a guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins, Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. Ed is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. He also has numerous other publications, including several published on this site. (Please see the list after the end of this essay.) 

 

Randy E. Barnett is one of our most important contemporary defenders of a free society. Trained as a legal scholar but working at the intersection of law, political philosophy, constitutional theory, and economics, Barnett has developed a comprehensive moral and institutional justification for liberty that draws upon natural law, natural rights, individual sovereignty, and the evolutionary benefits of social order. Unlike many economists who defend capitalism primarily on grounds of efficiency, or philosophers who rely exclusively on consequentialist arguments, Barnett seeks to demonstrate that a free society is both morally justified and practically necessary because it provides the legal and institutional framework within which persons can pursue flourishing lives according to their own judgments.

 

His most systematic statement of this position appears in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (1998 and 2014), supplemented by numerous articles and essays, additional books, and by the collection, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (2024). This recent memoir reveals how his thinking has evolved, particularly his insistence that libertarianism must incorporate a robust natural law ethics alongside its familiar natural rights framework. Across these works, Barnett develops a theory of justice rooted in natural law and natural rights, while simultaneously explaining how decentralized social institutions, private property, voluntary exchange, and constitutional limits on government create the conditions necessary for peaceful social cooperation. In his writings he has developed an architectural, function-based paradigm for a free society.

What makes Barnett especially significant is that he bridges several intellectual traditions that are often viewed as distinct: classical liberalism, natural rights theory, constitutional originalism, Austrian and public choice economics, and evolutionary accounts of social order. His work also bears important similarities to the neo-Aristotelian liberalism of Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl that they call Individualistic Perfectionism. Although Barnett’s theoretical foundations differ in important respects from their perfectionist ethics, both approaches ultimately converge in their defense of liberty, limited government, and the moral significance of individual self-direction. This essay explores Barnett’s philosophical case for a free society, examining his diagnosis of the “three problems” of knowledge, interest, and power, his proposed “liberal conception of justice,” and his provocative argument for a polycentric constitutional order. It then considers the compatibility between Barnett’s natural law libertarianism and the ideas of Rasmussen and Den Uyl, a compatibility that suggests a promising convergence between two of the best contemporary defenses of liberty.

The Natural Law Foundation

What distinguishes Barnett’s project from much libertarian writing is his explicit and systematic appeal to natural law. While many libertarians take individual rights as given axioms or derive them from Kantian or utilitarian premises, Barnett follows a different path. He adopts a “given‑if‑then” method: “Given that the nature of human beings and the world in which they live is X, if we want them to achieve Y, then we ought to do Z”. The “X” here is the empirical reality of human nature and the scarcity and uncertainty of the external world; the “Y” is the pursuit of “happiness, peace, and prosperity” in social life. On this foundation, Barnett builds a normative edifice that aims to be both objective and practical.

Barnett is careful to distinguish between natural law ethics and natural rights. “Whereas natural law ethics assesses the propriety of individual conduct,” he writes, “natural rights assesses the propriety or justice of the use of force or coercion by others”. Ethics tells us how to live a good life; rights tell us what we may rightfully do to one another—and what we may not do. This distinction is central to Barnett’s political theory, for it allows him to defend a legal order that protects negative liberty without prescribing any particular conception of the good life. The state’s proper role is to secure the conditions under which individuals can peacefully pursue their own happiness, not to enforce the moral perfection of its citizens.

The Three Problems of Social Interaction

 Barnett’s argument for a free society proceeds by identifying three pervasive problems that arise when human beings interact under conditions of scarcity and uncertainty. These problems, he contends, must be solved for any society to enable its members to pursue happiness in peace.

The problem of knowledge is the first and most fundamental. Each individual possesses unique, local, and personal knowledge about his own situation, needs, and opportunities. No central planner—and no judge or legislator—can ever acquire all the information necessary to allocate resources efficiently or to direct individual conduct. The only social order that can harness this dispersed knowledge is one that respects freedom of contract and private property, allowing individuals to act on their own information and adjust to changing circumstances through market prices and voluntary exchange.

The problem of interest acknowledges that each person is primarily self‑interested. While this self‑interest can be a source of social cooperation, it also creates conflicts. Barnett argues that decentralized property rights coordinate self‑interested behavior by channeling it into productive, mutually beneficial exchanges. When individuals own the fruits of their labor, they have a powerful incentive to use resources efficiently and to respect the similar rights of others.

The problem of power is the most directly political. Whoever holds the authority to enforce the law—to punish wrongdoers and compel restitution—will be tempted to abuse that power for his own benefit. As Barnett puts it, “given that those with the power to impose punishments will be partial to their own interests, the power to punish or to use force to compel restitution is likely to be abused”. This problem is acute in any legal system, but it is especially dangerous when the state enjoys a monopoly on coercion. Barnett’s solution is not simply to limit government through written constitutions and separation of powers, but to question the necessity of any centralized, monopolistic enforcement institution at all.

The Liberal Conception of Justice

 From these three problems, Barnett derives five elements of what he calls the liberal conception of justice:

1. Property rights – rights to acquire, possess, use, and dispose of scarce physical resources.

2. The right to first possession – the rule that property is initially acquired by the first occupant or user, subject to the equal rights of others.

3. Freedom of contract – consent is both necessary (freedom from contract) and sufficient (freedom to contract) to transfer alienable property rights.

4. Restitution – one who violates the rights of another must compensate the victim.

5. Self‑defense – the right to use proportionate force to protect one’s person or property against imminent violation.

These five rights, Barnett argues, are not arbitrary constructs but are required by the very logic of social cooperation under the conditions of knowledge, interest, and power. They provide a structure for liberty that distinguishes it from mere license—that is, from the unconstrained freedom to do whatever one pleases regardless of its impact on others.

Liberty, Natural Rights, and Individual Sovereignty

 

At the core of Barnett’s philosophy lies the idea of individual sovereignty. Every person possesses moral jurisdiction over his or her own life. Human beings are not resources to be used for collective ends, nor are they merely instruments of social welfare. Rather, they are autonomous agents capable of reasoning, choosing, and pursuing purposes of their own.

 

Barnett’s natural rights theory begins with a practical problem: how can social cooperation occur among millions of diverse persons who possess different goals, values, beliefs, and aspirations? Human beings inevitably come into conflict because resources are scarce and because individuals seek to pursue different projects. The fundamental purpose of rights is to solve this problem by establishing jurisdictional boundaries that identify what each person may control and what others must respect.

 

Natural rights therefore function as moral and legal boundaries. They identify domains within which individuals may exercise discretion without interference from others. Rights to life, liberty, property, and contract are not arbitrary social conventions; they emerge from the need to facilitate peaceful coexistence among free and equal persons.

 

For Barnett, rights are not primarily instruments for achieving collective welfare. Rather, they establish a framework within which people can pursue their own conceptions of the good life. This emphasis distinguishes his theory from utilitarian approaches that justify liberty merely because it produces desirable consequences.

 

Barnett argues that a society that systematically violates individual rights cannot be morally justified, even if government officials claim to act in pursuit of beneficial social outcomes. Respect for rights reflects respect for persons as self-governing agents.

 

The Problem of Knowledge and Social Coordination

 

A central theme in Barnett’s work is the problem of knowledge. Like classical liberals such as Friedrich A. Hayek, Barnett emphasizes that knowledge is dispersed throughout society. No single person or institution possesses enough information to direct economic and social life effectively.

 

Each individual possesses unique knowledge about his or her circumstances, preferences, opportunities, talents, and goals. Social systems that rely upon centralized planning inevitably fail because decision-makers lack access to the information necessary for rational coordination.

 

Barnett therefore views liberty not merely as a moral principle but also as an epistemic necessity. Freedom allows individuals to act upon local knowledge and to discover new opportunities through experimentation. Markets, civil associations, and voluntary institutions function as mechanisms for coordinating dispersed information.

 

This insight helps explain why Barnett defends private property and contractual freedom. Property rights establish stable expectations about resource ownership. Contract law allows individuals to coordinate plans and exchange information through voluntary agreements. Market prices communicate information that no central planner could ever fully possess. The free society thus emerges not merely as a morally attractive ideal but as a practical solution to the problem of social knowledge.

 

The Structure of Liberty and the Problem of Social Order

 

Barnett’s most influential contribution appears in The Structure of Liberty. The book begins with a fundamental question: what legal and political institutions are necessary to enable people to coexist peacefully while pursuing their diverse ends?

 

Barnett rejects the assumption that society requires extensive centralized control. Instead, he argues that social order can emerge spontaneously when appropriate legal rules exist.

 

His analysis draws upon insights from economics, evolutionary theory, and legal philosophy. Human beings continuously face coordination problems. Institutions evolve because they help solve these problems. Rules concerning property, contract, torts, and criminal law develop because they facilitate cooperation and reduce conflict.

 

Barnett describes a free society as a framework of rules rather than a blueprint for outcomes. Justice does not require that government produce particular patterns of wealth, happiness, or equality. Rather, justice requires the maintenance of legal institutions that enable individuals to pursue their own goals peacefully. The legal order should therefore focus on protecting rights and enforcing voluntary agreements rather than directing economic activity or redistributing resources.

 

The Presumption of Liberty

 

Perhaps Barnett’s most famous contribution is the concept of the “presumption of liberty.” According to this principle, individual freedom should be regarded as the default condition. Government restrictions on liberty require justification rather than liberty requiring justification. This reverses a common assumption in modern political discourse. Too often, government action is presumed legitimate unless citizens can prove otherwise. Barnett argues that the burden of proof should operate in the opposite direction.

 

Because individuals possess natural rights, coercive restrictions on their actions require compelling justification. Government officials must demonstrate why limitations on liberty are necessary and consistent with the protection of rights. The presumption of liberty serves both moral and practical purposes. Morally, it reflects respect for individual sovereignty. Practically, it recognizes the limitations of governmental knowledge and the dangers of concentrated power. This principle has become influential in constitutional scholarship, particularly regarding judicial review and the interpretation of constitutional rights.

 

He elevates the Ninth Amendment, which states that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, as explicit constitutional proof that individual liberties are expansive and pre-political, whereas government powers are strictly enumerated and limited. For Barnett, constitutional originalism is not an exercise in historical antiquarianism; it is the practical, institutional technology required to enforce the very principles of justice and property needed to solve the problems of knowledge, interest, and power.

 

Natural Law without Perfectionism

 

Barnett’s natural law theory differs significantly from traditional Thomistic approaches. He does not attempt to derive detailed moral obligations from a comprehensive account of human flourishing. Instead, he develops what might be called a procedural natural law. The purpose of legal institutions is not to ensure that people live virtuously. Rather, it is to create conditions within which individuals may pursue their own visions of the good.

 

Barnett recognizes that citizens will disagree about religion, morality, lifestyle, and personal aspirations. Political institutions must therefore remain neutral among competing conceptions of the good life while protecting the rights of all persons. This emphasis distinguishes Barnett from many classical natural law theorists who seek to ground political institutions directly in substantive moral ideals.

 

Yet, Barnett does not embrace moral relativism. He continues to maintain that objective moral principles exist and that rights derive from human nature and the requirements of social cooperation.

 

A Life for Liberty and the Evolution of Barnett’s Thought

 Barnett’s recent memoir, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, offers a more personal window into his intellectual journey. But the memoir is more than autobiography. Barnett uses it to lay out five ways that libertarianism needs to be updated, a program that he has already begun to articulate in his scholarly writings. First, and most relevant for our purposes, is the need for natural law ethics in addition to natural rights. Barnett recognizes that a purely negative, rights‑based libertarianism is incomplete. It tells us what we may not do to each other, but it offers little guidance on how we should live our own lives. A fully developed libertarian theory, he now argues, must rest on a thicker ethical foundation—one that grounds rights in a conception of human flourishing while still respecting the limits of political authority. Second, is the need to distinguish between libertarian ideal theory and second-best libertarianism in a world of governments and competing nations. Third, is the need for a libertarian theory of citizenship and civil rights. Fourth, is the need to separate the public-private binary from the government-nongovernment binary. Fifth, is the need for a more refined theory of corporate power and corporate rights.

Constitutionalism and the Protection of Liberty

 

Barnett’s defense of liberty extends beyond moral philosophy into constitutional law. He argues that constitutional limits on governmental power are essential for preserving freedom. The Constitution should be understood as a mechanism for constraining political actors rather than empowering them to pursue expansive social objectives. His theory of originalism seeks to recover the Constitution’s role as a protector of liberty. Constitutional interpretation should focus on the original public meaning of legal texts because stable rules reduce opportunities for arbitrary governmental power.

 

Barnett frequently argues that modern constitutional jurisprudence has allowed excessive expansion of state authority. Judicial deference to legislative action has weakened protections for individual rights and economic liberty. A proper constitutional order, in his view, should reestablish meaningful limits on governmental power while strengthening protections for individual freedom.

 

The Polycentric Constitutional Order

 

The most radical, and most controversial, aspect of Barnett’s Structure of Liberty is his defense of what he calls a “polycentric constitutional order.” In such an order, the traditional state monopoly on law enforcement is replaced by a competitive market in legal services. Private courts and private police agencies would operate alongside one another, their decisions enforced through a network of contractual agreements and a background system of restitution. Barnett is not an anarchist in the sense of rejecting all rules or all coercion. Rather, he believes that a market‑based, decentralized system of legal provision is the only one that can adequately address the problem of power. Constitutional constraints on government have repeatedly failed to prevent “enforcement abuse”—the use of power for improper purposes. A polycentric order, by contrast, would harness competitive pressures to keep legal services responsive, efficient, and rights‑respecting.

 Not all readers have been persuaded. Many classical liberals and libertarians remain “minarchists’, insisting that a minimal state is both necessary and legitimate. But even critics acknowledge the power of Barnett’s analysis. The debate over polycentricism continues, but Barnett’s formulation of the problem of power has permanently altered the terms of that debate.

 Compatibility with Neo‑Aristotelian Liberalism

 Barnett’s project intersects with the work of two prominent neo‑Aristotelian philosophers, Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl. In their influential book Norms of Liberty, Rasmussen and Den Uyl advance a defense of liberalism that is explicitly grounded in an Aristotelian ethics of human flourishing. They argue for construing individual rights as “metanormative principles”—principles that establish the political and legal conditions under which moral conduct can take place, without themselves dictating the content of that conduct. The state’s proper role is to protect the “right to liberty” understood as the right to be self‑directed, to pursue one’s own flourishing in one’s own way, provided one respects the equal rights of others.

 The parallels with Barnett’s framework are striking. Both start from a naturalistic ethical foundation: Barnett from a “given‑if‑then” analysis of human nature, Rasmussen and Den Uyl from an Aristotelian conception of the human good as an objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, self‑directed, and social activity. Both distinguish sharply between the normative principles that guide individual conduct (ethics) and the metanormative principles that structure the legal order (rights). And both conclude that the political‑legal order must be non‑perfectionist—it must not attempt to promote or enforce any particular conception of human flourishing, even though such a conception underpins the theory itself.

 The compatibility is not merely theoretical. Barnett and Rasmussen have co‑authored an article titled “The Right to Liberty in a Good Society,” in which they explore how a “Constitution of Civic Virtue” might contribute to a flourishing social order. The very existence of this collaboration suggests that Barnett finds the neo‑Aristotelian framework congenial to his own natural law libertarianism. When Barnett urges libertarians to embrace natural‑law foundations, the one he recommends is that developed by Rasmussen and Den Uyl.

 One important potential point of tension is that Barnett’s polycentric constitutional order is more radical than the minimal state that Rasmussen and Den Uyl defend. There are some additional differences. Barnett begins with the problem of social order and develops rights as solutions to coordination problems among diverse individuals. His emphasis is institutional and jurisprudential. Rasmussen and Den Uyl begin with a richer neo-Aristotelian account of ethics and human flourishing. Their theory is explicitly perfectionist in the sense that it seeks to identify the characteristics of an objectively flourishing human life. Barnett’s natural law is more procedural and political. Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s framework is more ethical and philosophical.

Yet, both sides share a commitment to the priority of liberty as a political value, a rejection of state perfectionism, and a belief that a naturalistic ethical foundation is compatible with, and indeed necessary for, a robust defense of individual freedom. Like Barnett, they reject utilitarianism, collectivism, and political paternalism. They also defend natural rights, limited government, and the moral significance of individual self-direction. Both approaches recognize that human flourishing is highly individualized. There is no single blueprint for the good life. People pursue flourishing through diverse projects, relationships, careers, and commitments. 

Barnett provides a powerful account of why liberty is necessary for social cooperation and legal order. Rasmussen and Den Uyl provide a deeper account of why liberty matters for human flourishing and moral development. Taken together, the theories offer both institutional and ethical justifications for a free society. Barnett explains how liberty works and Rasmussen and Den Uyl explain why liberty is valuable for the flourishing person.

 

Conclusion

 Randy Barnett’s case for a free society is one of the most ambitious and intellectually rigorous contributions to contemporary libertarian thought. By grounding his theory in natural law and focusing on the practical problems of knowledge, interest, and power, he has provided a framework that is both principled and realistic. His distinction between natural law ethics and natural rights allows him to defend a legal order that protects negative liberty without collapsing into moral skepticism. And his recent call for a fuller integration of natural law ethics suggests an ongoing evolution that may bring his work even closer to the neo‑Aristotelian liberalism of thinkers like Rasmussen and Den Uyl.

 The compatibility between Barnett and the neo‑Aristotelian tradition is more than a footnote to contemporary theory. It points toward a possible synthesis that could strengthen the defense of liberty against its critics on both the left and the right. By drawing on the resources of natural law, classical liberalism, and Aristotelian ethics, such a synthesis would offer a unified vision of human flourishing and political justice—one that respects the diversity of individual pursuits while insisting on the universal principles that make peaceful cooperation possible. In an age of increasing political polarization and ideological fragmentation, that vision is more needed than ever.

 Randy Barnett has developed one of the most complete contemporary defenses of a free society. Grounded in natural law, natural rights, and individual sovereignty, his philosophy presents liberty as both a moral imperative and a practical necessity. Through his theory of the presumption of liberty, his analysis of social coordination, and his defense of constitutional constraints on governmental power, Barnett offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the institutions of a free society.

 

His work demonstrates that liberty is not merely an economic arrangement or a political preference. It is a moral and legal framework that enables individuals to pursue their own purposes while cooperating peacefully with others. Rights, property, markets, and constitutional limits emerge as interconnected institutions that facilitate social order among diverse persons.

 

Moreover, Barnett’s theory is highly compatible with the Individualistic Perfectionism of Rasmussen and Den Uyl. Although they begin from different philosophical starting points, these three thinkers converge on the conclusion that human beings flourish best within a social order characterized by liberty, voluntary cooperation, secure rights, and limited government. Together, their work represents a compelling contemporary statement of the classical liberal ideal: a society in which free and responsible persons are able to direct their own lives within a framework of justice and mutual respect.

 

References

 

Barnett, Randy E.  1998 and 2014. The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law. Oxford University Press.

Barnett, Randy E. and Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2001. “The Right to Liberty in a Good Society”. Fordham Law Review.

 

Barnett, Randy E.  2004. Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty. Princeton University Press.

 

Barnett, Randy E.  2016. Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People. Broadside Books.

 

Barnett, Randy E.  2024. A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist. Encounter Books.

 

Benson, Bruce L. 2000.  “Review of The Structure of Liberty”.  Cato Journal 20(2), 271-275.

 

Den Uyl, Douglas J.  and Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2016. The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh University Press.

Hayek, Friedrich A. 1973-1979. Law, Legislation and Liberty. University of Chicago Press,

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. Pennsylvania State University Press.

 

Other essays by Ed Younkins on this site:

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “What Contribution did David L. Norton Make to our Understanding of Ethical Individualism?” Freedom and Flourishing. January 18, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “How can dialectics help us to defend liberty?” Freedom and Flourishing. July 8, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “How can Austrian Economics be reconciled with the Neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. October 24, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2025) “Can Polarized Moral Politics be Bridged by a Neo-Aristotelian Philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?” Freedom and Flourishing. December 13, 2025.

Younkins, Edward W. (2026) “Does Humanomics Need a Moral Anchor?” Freedom and Flourishing. January 22, 2026.

Younkins, Edward W. (2026) “Is Character Education Compatible With Individualistic Perfectionism?” Freedom and Flourishing. February 27, 2026.

Younkins, Edward W. (2026) “Are Spontaneous Order and neo-Aristotelian Arguments for a Free Society Compatible?” Freedom and Flourishing. March 19, 2026.

Younkins, Edward W. (2026) “Are Spinoza’s Philosophy and Neo-Aristotelian Philosophies of Freedom and Flourishing Compatible?” Freedom and Flourishing. June 4, 2026. 

How can we live seasonally and in tune with the natural world?

 Leah Goldrick answers the question posed above in this guest essay.

Leah lives in the United States. She is a librarian and author with a background in history and philosophy. Some other essays by Leah have previously been published on “Freedom and Flourishing”:

How can we overcome confirmation bias?

How can you develop the personality traits needed to resist social pressure?

Why did Aristotle view leisure as a fundamental aspect of a well-lived life?

As with the essays listed above, the following essay was first published on Common Sense Ethics, Leah’s blog.

The essay was first published last September, during the fall season in the USA. However, when I read the essay again a few days ago it struck me that many of the activities suggested are also suitable for early winter in many parts of the southern hemisphere, and for early summer in many parts of the northern hemisphere.

I asked Grok to provide me the image of a young Aristotle walking in nature that accompanies the essay. Leah writes:

 

Summer is almost over, and we are headed for cooler nights and autumnal days where brilliant colors abound. It's easy to spend far too much time indoors doom scrolling and never touching grass. But with the changing seasons and more moderate temperatures coming, I'm always looking for ways to get outside and enjoy nature before winter.

Building on the previous post's theme of Aristotelian leisure, here, I suggest some easy ways to live more seasonally, creatively, and in-tune with nature: 
​

1. Nature Journal or Sketchbook

Keeping a nature journal or sketchbook is rewarding even if you aren't a particularly good artist. Drawing is excellent for working the right brain, and we Westerners are too often stuck in left brain, rational, linear thought, while neglecting the creative and holistic aspects of the right brain.

 

This is the nature journal my kids use, which is pictured above. And for adults, there are a lot of attractive sketchbooks to choose from. My nature journal is the smaller black book pictured above, one like this. The medium size is good for bringing on travel. I use colored pencils for my illustrations, but watercolors will work with this sketchbook too. 

​Wildflower workbook is a journal with thoughtful prompts and exercises to encourage engagement with the natural world. From bird-spotting advice to camping checklists, in the artist's lovely signature style, it is good for adults or older kids. 

I also want to buy Watercolor in the Woods, which is a collection of beginner-friendly art tutorials and directions to guide you through the basics of nature watercolor.

2. Hiking/Walking

Aristotle was a prodigious walker. In fact, his school of thought, Peripatetic philosophy, translates from Greek as "I go for a walk." Aristotle liked to walk while he reflected on different ideas. There was also a larger connection in Greek thought between the idea of a journey and intellectual inquiry. Both journeying and looking far away into the distance can help us get out beyond the realm of our narrow concerns. 

Karen Armstrong writes about this same phenomenon of stepping outside in her book The Spiral Staircase: "We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind."

Walking also has many physical health benefits. Among them are better weight management, reduced disease burden, and increased longevity. Breathing fresh air and getting sunlight are beneficial as well.  

Fall is an ideal time to find a trail and go hiking. Even better, bring family, or go at an off time when you can have the place to yourself and enjoy the leaves in solitude. 
​

3. Seasonal Decor

Perhaps I'm drawn to this because I'm a woman, but I find it very rewarding to decorate my home with seasonal colors and inexpensive natural items brought in from outdoors. 

It's fall, so pumpkins and gourds are my go-to items for decorating both indoors and outdoors.  

During winter, I like a neutral color pallet of whites, off-whites, browns and muted greens. I put out cozy blankets and pillows, and decorate my home's interior with pine cones, branches, and fairly lights in dark corners that need some illumination during these shorter, darker days. 

In spring and summer, I might use a bright pallet of aqua or coral, and bring in bouquets of wildflowers. 
​

4. Seasonal Foods & Traditions

Aristotle approved of enjoying fine food and drink, although such indulgence should always be tempered with moderation. Aristotle and his fellow Greeks would have enjoyed dishes prepared with sweet and sour flavors, fragrant herbs, creamy cheesecakes and hearty red wines. You can try some of these dishes featured in The Classical Cookbook here. 

​Today, with the harvest approaching, fall is the ideal time for preparing traditional seasonal foods. This could including making marinara sauce with the last batch of tomatoes, adding apples or squashes into various dishes, turkey at Thanksgiving or pumpkin pie. 

Keeping a garden, going to the farmer's market, going apple or pumpkin picking, canning and preserving, are all excellent ways to enjoy seasonal food. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a rewarding fall season!

Why Bother Considering Whether Government is Necessary?

 

Before my most recent trip to India I had to choose which of two recently purchased books I should take with me: Aeon Skoble’s Deleting the State, or Salvatore Babones’ Dharma Democracy. I chose Dharma Democracy (which I have since written about here) because I didn’t like the idea of trying to explain to an airport official that Deleting the State is a philosophical treatise rather than a manual for the violent overthrow of governments.

At that time, I would not have been able to point to pages 107-8 where Skoble argues explicitly against violent action to remove a government in any “nominally liberal democracy”. In the Afterword of the recently published second edition of his book, the author takes the opportunity to emphasize his opposition to violence by giving reasons for eschewing it and reiterating that deleting the state means “deleting the idea of the necessity of the state”.

The subtitle of the book is Requiem for an Illusion. The illusion Skoble refers to is the Hobbesian Fear that in the absence of a government “to keep them all in awe” people would find themselves at each others’ throats - in a war “of every man against every other man”.  I will discuss later the author’s reasons for considering the Hobbesian Fear an illusion.

Skoble regards the neo-Aristotelian conception of human flourishing provided by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl as providing the best defense of a theory of individual liberty. He notes, however, that in Norms of Liberty the Dougs leave open the question of whether a political/legal order defending individual rights necessitates the existence of a state. Skoble points out that the difference between a state and a political/legal order is not trivial.

What is the point of philosophical anarchism? 

In the Afterword Skoble writes:

“If deleting the state means deleting the generally held notion that we need to have a state, and the only way to do it is to make philosophical arguments, we’re in a lot of trouble. Philosophers have a poor track record of being persuasive to large majorities. So what, one might ask, is the point of philosophical anarchism?”

The author goes on to answer that question cogently. However, before considering his response, I want to present a contrary argument.

Is the existence of government an issue that should occupy the minds of those who believe that liberty supports human flourishing? As far as I know, there is no country in the world in which citizens are currently faced with a choice between having a minimal state or no state at all. In liberal democracies – the countries that currently enjoy the greatest personal and economic freedom – liberty is being threatened by political movements with authoritarian tendencies. Authoritarianism is presented in the wrapping of different varieties of collectivist idealism which offer citizens the opportunity to attribute personal and social problems to immigration, foreign competition, the greed of the wealthy, systemic discrimination, environmental degradation or anything else that appears to justify a larger role for government. Shouldn’t libertarians be focusing their attention on supporting the political/legal order – democracy, or representative government - that has been most successful in promoting personal and economic freedom?

Readers who doubt that the countries with greatest economic and personal freedom are liberal democracies should take a look at the graphs shown in an essay I wrote last year. There may be serious errors in common measures of personal freedom for some countries - as noted in my recent essay on Indian politics – but the weight of evidence suggests that representative government has hitherto been more successful in defending individual rights than any other contemporary form of politico/legal order that currently exists in the real world.

So, how do I justify spending time thinking about utopian concepts such as philosophical anarchism instead of spending all my efforts opposing the advances of authoritarianism?

The first defence that comes to mind is that I find it interesting to think about the question of whether government is necessary. I think that is sufficient justification for a human to spend some time thinking about any topic.

However, I have reasons to be particularly interested in the potential for utopian thinking to play a useful role in considering public policy issues. I have claimed in the past:

“We are more likely to improve opportunities for human flourishing if we approach public policy issues with a view to both (a) upholding ideals that ought to apply and (b) the real-world constraints that should not be overlooked.”

I made that comment in a short essay considering Chris Sciabarra’s discussion of the anti-utopianism in the methodology of Marx and Hayek in Marx, Hayek and Utopia.

Skoble argues that anarchist arguments can help people to think about the limits of state power. He suggests that they can be used to clarify that getting a different group of office-holders into power will not resolve problems that are attributable to institutional structures. He cites mass incarceration and business regulation that stifles innovation as examples. He sums up:

“To make the case against the state is to undermine the idea that coercion is necessary for social order or that it is beneficial to human society. It is to point the way toward the continual need to scale back the scope of state power. It is to affirm the priorities of liberty and its necessary connection to human flourishing, and to keep us mindful of the ways in which the state, and our often-unthinking obedience to it, hinders that flourishing.”

Allaying the Hobbesian Fear

Those who argue that a government is necessary to maintain social cooperation often refer to the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. Players can obtain a greater payoff if they both cooperate than if they both defect. However, each player has an incentive to defect in the hope of obtaining a greater payoff at the expense of the other player. On that basis, it is claimed that in the absence of a coercive intervention to enforce cooperation both players will end up defecting.

However, Skoble observes that defection is only the winning strategy in a one-shot game - social cooperation emerges spontaneously when the prisoner’s dilemma game is repeated over long periods. In support of this argument he refers to Robert Axelrod’s book The Evolution of Cooperation, which found that a tit-for-tat (reciprocation) strategy gave players higher payoffs than constant defection. The author notes that strategies that allow for the possibility that a defecting player may have made a mistake offer higher payoffs than tit-for-tat.

It may be worth adding that the utility maximizing assumptions of game theory tend to be less conducive to social cooperation than are real people engaged in trust games in a laboratory setting. As Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson noted in Humanomics, anonymously paired people are “predominantly caring other-regarding, independent actors in the personal social exchange context of trust games in the laboratory”.

Skoble makes the point that law ought to be construed as a natural consequence of attempts of people to live and work together rather than as something requiring a coercive monopoly power. Among other things, he notes that enforcement of property rights requires “a society that in fact recognizes the practicality of recognizing property rights” rather than a “monopolistic coercive authority”. In that context he discusses the history of spontaneous evolution of civil law conflict resolution drawing upon works by David Friedman and Murray Rothbard.

The author devotes a chapter to providing an extended example of the potential for disaster relief to be provided via voluntary cooperation rather than a centralized political authority.

In his final chapter, Skoble discusses the question of whether disagreements between libertarian anarchists and minimal-state libertarians are radically incommensurable, or capable of being resolved by dialogue. He argues that there are “no fundamental premises or values that separate anarchists from libertarian minimum-statists” that would prevent the differences between them being resolved by dialogue. There is even potential for dialogue between libertarians and welfarist liberals. Political philosophy can explore relevant questions such as the circumstances, if any, under which the will of the majority should override individual liberty.

Additional considerations

One argument that is sometimes advanced in opposition to philosophical anarchism is that a written constitution helps to protect liberty. Perhaps that is true of the United States, but it is not difficult to find examples of countries where constitutional provisions have failed to protect liberty. The former Soviet Union comes to mind. There are also notable examples of countries which have maintained a relatively high degree of liberty without written constitutional protections. Britain comes to mind.  

Roderick Long has suggested that those who believe government is necessary are being misled by a metaphysically illusive picture of what constitutional restraints are and how they work:

“The metaphysical illusion I referred to is the habit of thinking of constitutional restraints (checks and balances, separation of powers, etc.) as though these structures existed in their own right, as external limitations on society as a whole. But in fact those structures exist only insofar as they are continually maintained in existence by human agents acting in certain systematic ways. A constitution is not some impersonal, miraculously self-enforcing robot. It’s an ongoing pattern of behavior, and it persists only so long as human agents continue to conform to that pattern in their actions.” (Long, 2008)

I have previously discussed similar views of the nature of constitutions by Sheldon Richman (here) and Douglass North (here).

A more difficult argument to contend with is that the free rider problem would prevent adequate provision of national defense. I think John Hasnas has advanced an appropriate response to that argument. He suggests that an inability to raise sufficient capital to engage in foreign military adventures or pre-emptive warfare without resort to coercion proves nothing about the potential for defense against outside aggression to be funded voluntarily.

Hasnas acknowledges that he doesn’t know whether sufficient funds could be raised by voluntary means to fund protection against outside aggression. He suggests:

“No one believes that we can transition from a world of states to anarchy instantaneously. No reasonable anarchist advocates the total dissolution of government tomorrow. Once we turn our attention to the question of how to move incrementally from government to anarchy, it becomes apparent that national defense would be one of the last governmental functions to be de-politicized.”

That seems to me to be a sensible position to adopt. It does not preclude the possibility that a society that moves incrementally to reduce coercion of some by others will one day end up not requiring coercion to ensure appropriate provision of any goods currently provided by governments.

Conclusion

This essay has been prompted by my reading of the Second edition of Aeon Skoble’s book, Deleting the State.

Early in the essay, I posed the question of whether the existence of government is an issue that should currently occupy the minds of libertarians in the light of current threats to liberty by political movements with authoritarian tendencies. Skoble provides an appropriate response in his defense of philosophical consideration of the possibility of anarchy. In particular, he suggests that such philosophical endeavours help libertarians to make the point that getting a different group of office holders into power will not resolve problems that are attributable to the existence and scope of state power.

A central concern of the book is to allay the Hobbesian Fear that people will be unable to obtain the benefits of social cooperation in the absence of a government to maintain order. In my view, Skoble provides strong arguments to allay that fear.

I endorse Skoble’s view that law ought to be construed as a natural consequence of attempts of people to live and work together, rather than as something requiring a coercive monopoly power. Constitutional restraints are not self-enforcing. It cannot be assumed that they would continue to offer protection of the rights of citizens if enforcement of them did not have broad community support.

The question of how national defense could be provided without coercive taxation is probably the most challenging obstacle to attempts by philosophical anarchists to persuade minarchists that anarchy is a viable option. In my view, it makes sense to acknowledge the difficulties that would be encountered at present in ensuring adequate voluntary provision of defense resources. That doesn’t mean, however, that it makes sense to assume that coercive taxation will always be required to fund defense. Libertarians who have the objective of reducing coercion “as much as possible in society”, should leave open the possibility that at some stage elimination of the state could become a viable option.  

References

Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation (Basic Books, 1984).

Babones, Salvatore, Dharma Democracy: How India Built the Third World’s First Democracy (Connor Court Publishing, 2025).

Hasnas, John, Common Law Liberalism: A New Theory of the Libertarian Society (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Hayek, F. A. The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1960).

Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). 

Long, R. T. “Market anarchism as constitutionalism”, in R. T. Long & T. R. Machan (Eds.), Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a government part of a free country? (Ashgate Publishing, 2008). pp. 133–154.

Sciabarra, Chris Matthew, Marx, Hayek and Utopia (State University of New York Press, 1995).

Skoble, Aeon J. Deleting the State: Requiem for an Illusion, Second edition (Independent Institute, 2026).

Smith, Vernon L., and Bart J. Wilson, Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2019).